


Twisted

by lacihparg



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Lack of Communication, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Steve is a little shit, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:58:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacihparg/pseuds/lacihparg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say it's a blessing to see another's soul imprinted on your own skin. Some say it's a curse, to have a fate placed on you that you cannot escape. Others say that it's how God chooses your mate, the best partner to carry you through the years.</p><p>For people with two marks, they are always cursed. For while they may have a soulmate, they have two, and God does not mean for three people in a union.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghosting

**Author's Note:**

> This is my own spin on the soulmark verse. Here, grey means your soulmate is alive. Black means you have met, spoken to, and touched your soulmate, completing the bond. White means that your soulmate has died. The mark is the first words they will ever speak to you, written in their handwriting.
> 
> I also mention a "faith" in this series, but I'm pulling ideas from several world religions and not identifying any of them. You should see themes you recognize, but I refuse to title them out of respect for the diverse beliefs around the world. When I say God here, I capitalize it as a name and mean it as the largest deity in the faith. As more things are revealed about this faith and how it shapes the story, I will explain it either through story or through notes.

When she came into the world, her mother nearly fainted out of shock. Her daughter’s soulmarks (yes, plural) were nothing she had ever seen before. Any self-respecting believer would be asking why their child had been cursed with two soulmates, but both marks were eerily pale. 

 

“White as a ghost!” the nurse exclaimed before swaddling the newborn in a little pink blanket. They couldn’t read the words yet; nobody could. She had to grow, stretch her skin out a little more for the letters to separate and become decipherable. Finally recovered from her initial reaction of fear, her mother named the baby lying at her breast.

 

“Mary Evelyn Morris.”

 

In the years that passed, Mrs. Morris worked very hard to keep her child safe from the disgrace of having two marks. The one on her hip, a neat loop of cursive, read something out of a love story: “A pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” The ugly scrawl on her shoulder blade was less than impressive: “Who the fuck are you?” It was a horrible fate to have a child with a mark such as that, yet alone have two and have them both be white as a sheet.

 

Her mother was even more upset that the soulmark that was most difficult to hide marred her daughter’s skin with such foul language. Mary took to covering both of them in bandages, but her hip consistently stayed hidden. While foul language could be excused, having two soulmarks couldn’t.

 

Mary kept a bandage on her hip during the summer, covering the gentle words she whispered to herself at night. Her secret, as she had come to call the person her hip referenced, seemed to be a much better character than her scar. But she could never mention her secret to anyone, even her mother, because it made her very angry. Her friends lamented over the fact that her one mark was already white, but acquiesced that it might not have been too much of a loss due to the scathing nature of the remark.

 

Mary would have been happy to know that one of her soulmates survived, but every morning when she looked in the mirror, both were as white as ever.

 

One summer at a friend’s pool party, Mary felt something rubbing at her left hip under the one piece swimsuit. When she went inside to check, she realized her bandage covering her hip mark had gotten too wet to stick to her body anymore. Casually she strolled out of the bathroom to ask for a wide bandage to replace it with, and her friend’s mother pulled out one of similar size.

 

When she was nearly done reattaching it to her skin, the bathroom door flew open and Mary realized she had forgotten to lock it. Struggling to cover herself, the intruder (a girl who didn’t like her very much, as luck would have it) saw the white cursive ghosting over her hip and screamed.

 

Mrs. Morris was not very happy when she picked Mary up early from the party. Her daughter sat in stunned silence the whole ride home. 

 

“How could you be so stupid?” her mother snarled. “Now they all know that we’ve been punished! You, with two marks! You, with two soulmates! Oh, what did your father and I do to deserve this?” she wailed, casting a glare at her daughter.

 

Mary trudged up the stairs to her room, threw herself onto her bed, and learned the next morning that her family was moving.

 

It became the pattern; they moved every year. Mary graduated from her fourth high school in as many years, went off somewhere to college on a full ride, and didn’t come home often. Majoring in criminal justice, she wanted to help make the world a better place. Secretly she was trying to atone for the sin of two marks.

 

She didn’t date in college, had never kissed anyone, would never let someone see her second mark on her hip. Everywhere she went she gained pity for the white mark on her shoulder, and every day she mourned her secret and her scar, wondering why they would be taken from the world so quickly.

 

She graduated with highest honors, applied to the FBI, and was accepted into their training academy. Six months into her training, she woke up one morning and checked the mirror. Her roommate found her unconscious on the floor.

 

Her marks were grey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 11/02/2016: Changed Mary's shoulder mark from “You mean we’re stuck with you?” to “Who the fuck are you?”
> 
> Dramatic effect was required. Tags have also been edited.


	2. Cat's out of the bag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary tries to wrap her head (and her heart) around what just happened to her skin.

Agent Fields, Mary’s supervisor, forces her to take the day off, citing the fact that her emotional well being is just as important as physical well-being. Mary barely knows what to do, changing out of her trainers and putting on a sports bra and sweats (both standard FBI issue, of course). She knows her roommate will be out in the field all day so she doesn’t worry about the now grey (!) lines gracing her skin. It’s the only thing she can focus on, standing in front of the mirror with Pandora playing on her laptop and rotating back and forth, tracing the well-known lines and wondering just how the universe decided to mess with her life again.

If she were the daughter her mother had prayed for, she would be in the chapel on her hands and knees begging for information on why she bore a curse. Believers just didn’t have two marks; it wasn’t the proper way of things. Marriage was between two people, two soulmates, marked by God to spend the rest of their lives together in holy union. A holy triangle can’t exist. 

Instead of kneeling, Mary dances, twirling around the room with her hands grasped by an imaginary man, her soulmate come to whisk her away with a flourish. She sings along with her music, breathless in her laughter and her hope. They were grey, they were alive, they would meet each other soon and everything would be perfect.

Her mood shifts several times over the course of the day, Mary forgoing food in favor of staying in her room, bare-skinned and glorious. But then she sobers, remembering the snarled words of her mama, and shifts in her desk chair as she reads the holy texts on the soulmark. Of what they are, how they work, what they mean, and nowhere does she see anything about multiple marks or what they mean.

An hour later she finishes her breathless, angry, tearful prayer and turns to her laptop still faithfully blasting music. She turns it off and turns to the internet, looking up “multiple soulmarks” and reads for another few hours, drawn into the world that was suddenly open to her. She doesn’t notice when Nadia opens the door to their room, wiping sweat off her brow and raising an eye at her normally prudish roommate.

Thanks to the angle, the grey words on Mary’s hip are in full view.

“I thought your mark was on your shoulder?”

Mary looks up and screams, reaching for something -- _anything _\-- to put between her and Nadia so she can have time to explain before she loses the one friend she finally thought she had made. Nostrils flared in a self-preserving fear, Nadia can only look on in ignorance until she sees.__

__“You have two.” She says quietly, a statement, not accusatory, not questioning, but realizing. Mary nods slowly, fear and shame knotting in her belly and how could she be so _stupid _\-- A tear falls out of her eye and before long, more follow and then she can barely keep herself from drenching Nadia’s sweatshirt as the two women kneel in the middle of their cramped dorm.___ _

____One episode of Netflix therapy and several mugs of apple cider later, Mary has told Nadia pretty much her entire life story -- how she was born, about the marks, the teasing, the hiding, the moving, everything, and the only thing Nadia has to say sets off another round of sobbing. “Honey, it just means your heart is big enough to love two people.”_ _ _ _

____Mary had never even thought about that._ _ _ _

____The next morning, Mary wakes at 0500 and checks her marks. They’re still grey. Nadia sends her a warm smile and the two line up at 0600, reporting for training and fall back into the routine of the Academy. Agent Simmons casts her a glance, but the trainee merely nods and falls back into place. They were still in the physical training portion, but it’s the last week, and Mary can’t help but be thankful she did track in high school. She did more running there then she did now._ _ _ _

____The morning run (3 miles, like normal), passes in a daze as she hums a song under breath, but when they move on to the sit-ups and pushups she begins focusing more on remaining alive than anything else. She stretches, takes a deep, refreshing pull of air, then launches into another set of planks._ _ _ _

____Lunch was a humble affair, like normal, and then Mary reports to her class to continue learning about computer threats. She and Nadia don’t have similar schedules, but it’s close enough that they compare their classes. Naturally, their aspirations for after graduation come up in the whole “let me finally get to know my roommate talk” that Mary starts. Nadia wants to focus on the techy side of the FBI, hoping to become one of those fancy hackers from TV who could answer a question with five quick taps of the keys._ _ _ _

____She knows it’s not really like that. Mary instead dreams of the field, busting bad guys and gleefully handcuffing them to deliver them to justice. She also knows it’s not really like that, but the two women giggle into their mugs of cider and talk about themselves. On a whim, Nadia shows her mark to Mary, a simple sentence inscribed on her upper thigh. She can barely read the handwriting, but when Nadia whispers the words on her skin, Mary’s hands cup hers._ _ _ _

____Nadia begins to check her mark every day, too, pulling the habit from Mary. They became closer quickly, with Nadia shushing the other woman any time her mother’s words began to creep into her voice. When only a month remains in their training, she and Mary find that senioritis doesn’t just happen to high schoolers._ _ _ _

____“Just firearms qualifications left,” Mary announces, and Nadia raises her bottle of water in a toast. The two practice clearing and cleaning the mock weapons they were issued, quizzing each other on proper handling as they do so. The next morning, Mary is called out of their class to go meet with some agent. Nadia doesn’t see her for the rest of the day. When she returns to their room, half of it is empty._ _ _ _

____Mary didn’t leave a note._ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone needs to keep me from browsing tags. I keep finding these adorable Darcy stories and lose any other desire than to devour them all.
> 
> Have another chapter!


	3. Mazes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary begins her first day as a SHIELD agent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't happy with this chapter so I made a few edits, including a date change to reflect the MCU timeline.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she breathes, looking around her in complete awe at the fancy governmental building rising from the ground. This wasn’t part of the FBI’s brochure, but, then again, comparing SHIELD and the FBI were like comparing apples and oranges.

“No badge yet, Morris,” her guide was saying, casting her a fairly serious glance over her shoulder. Mary tries to understand why Agent Hill of all people is leading her on a tour, but just decides to not question it and enjoy the ride. She knows little about Director Fury’s second-hand, but enough from their brief introduction to be impressed. SHIELD was a strict “off-limits” topic in the FBI (and other government agencies, from what friends have said) due to its international and high security missions. As such, Mary has absolutely no idea what’s in store for her. She’s led through rooms and floors that were practically mazes, and it finally ends in front of a door in a long hallway. “This is your room. Don’t be late tomorrow morning.” And Agent Hill leaves and Mary quietly enters her room to see her suitcase and duffel inside. She realizes too late that she doesn’t know _where_ to report the next morning.

The first thing she does is fix a mug of cider then unpacks, only to see the closet is filled with SHIELD-branded clothing and not her old FBI sweats. A crisply folded uniform is in the middle of the bed, and she assumes she has to wear that the next morning. Setting it aside, she stows her bags under the bed (but makes sure her duffel is packed as a go-bag) and investigates the small apartment.

A kitchenette is right off the doorway, with a coffee pot, mini-fridge, and microwave. The cabinets are sparse, filled with two types of cereal and some high-protein granola bars. Mary finds a notepad and pen in one of the drawers and begins to build a list of things to ask regarding her rooms, the first being when and where she can get food.

A half-wall separates the kitchenette from the living room, where she finds a two-person sofa, a bookshelf, and a desk. She sets her laptop up on her desk and connects to the internet before scanning the bookshelf. Mostly training manuals, but there is still some shelf space left. She wonders if she can fill it with her own material. She’s already acquainted with the bedroom, it holding a bed, a small closet, set of drawers, and a lamp. The bathroom is the last thing to see. It contains a walk-in shower, a toilet, and a small vanity. It’s a good thing she’s never been a makeup person. 

With the last of the rooms investigated, Mary then runs through the next part of her personal check-in list. It was one of the first things she learned at the FBI Academy, that she needs to check any new place for bugs, plants, or other hidden devices that weren’t supposed to be there. The first place she goes is the kitchen, looking behind the microwave and checking the cabinets for a false panel. When that turns up nothing, she looks behind the fridge and discovers a screwdriver taped to the back. She pockets that and then flips the couch over, noting no slashes or repairs to the underside of the furniture. Checking the desk turns up similar results, so she heads to the bedroom and follows the same procedure: check under the bed, test the drawers and closet for false panels, look for anything out of place. The last place she checks is the air vent above the window.

She uses the screwdriver to remove the cover, reaching in with a hand and flashlight to see a manilla envelope calmly waiting for her to retrieve it. Carefully replacing the covers, she opens it over her sink as a precaution. If it’s a powder or some other contaminant, she can rise off in the water and buy enough time to call a hazmat team.

It contains orders. She sits down at her desk to read.

_Morris, welcome to SHIELD. Inside you’ll find your instructions for the time being. Don’t disappoint._

The note isn’t signed, but she continues on to the next document.

A name, Nick Fury, catches her eye as she skims. Then her jaw drops in shock. She’s to report to the director tomorrow. And to think, she hasn’t even completed her training. The rest of the papers contain maps and pertinent information for her first day: a few background files, how the director likes his coffee, and most importantly: her badge.

Smiling, Mary places the ID on top of her uniform. 

\---

0600 finds her waiting inside Director Fury’s office with a large cup of black coffee. Mary had repressed her uniform that morning and admiring the way the dress fell. The navy blue wasn’t the same blue as the FBI, she had mused, but it was still a moment for the scrapbook.

“Good morning, sir,” she greets as the man himself walks into the room. She presses the coffee into his hands and takes the stack of papers from him, setting them on the desk.

“You weren’t trained to be an aide,” he says, turning to look at her with an oh-so-serious expression as he sips the coffee. “But you’ll do.” They spend the morning learning each other, Fury dictating reports to test her skills (she felt it was a little old fashioned) and checking her comprehension of the in-house scheduling system. As she discovers the cloud-enabled calendar that allows her to check the whereabouts of any agent in the building, a message pops up for the director.

“Sir, I’m to inform you of your lunchtime meeting with some special guests,” Mary reads off the screen. “Is there anything I need to prepare?” 

“Only your own lunch. You’re sitting in.” And like that, Mary is Fury’s new assistant. She knows she won’t ever be like Agent Hill, but maybe it’s something to aspire for in the future. She spends the rest of the morning filing papers, picking up on the paper organization quickly. She notes most of the papers seem pointless compared to the database she could access to from her workstation, but another rule she had learned in college was the “321” rule for backing up information: have at least 3 backups in two different medias with one stored off-site in a secure location. Paper copies of important files wasn’t too bad of a plan.

A beep from her desk tells her that it’s time for their meeting, so Mary gathers up her lunch and her director and heads to the conference room. Fury lets her lead, to see if she knows where she’s going. Two elevators, a flight of stairs, and a sharp left turn later, they arrive outside the assigned room and Mary can’t help but be proud. They enter, this time with Fury leading, and the two sit at the large conference table. She sits to his right and begins eating with one hand, ready to note down anything of importance as a few other men trickle in.

“I see your girl found her place,” one man says, jerking his head in her general direction. Mary frowns at the tone of voice, then practically chokes on her sandwich when Fury addresses her.

“Agent Morris, where did you find your orders?”

“In the air vent above my bedroom window, sir,” she responds, carefully sipping her water. “There was a screwdriver behind the mini fridge in the kitchenette.” That causes everyone gathered to tilt their head back in laughter.

“That’s the most inventive yet, Fury,” the same man responds, turning to look at her for the first time. “Alexander Pierce, Agent Morris. A pleasure to have someone with your brains on board.”

Mary nods her thanks around her apple and finishes her lunch quietly, gathering the trash of those nearby to make one large trip. She supposes it wouldn’t hurt to show that she could take care of more than just her boss. After lunch, Fury reminds her that being an aide doesn’t mean she’s no longer an agent. 

He leader her down to the in-house gym, where a woman in a black catsuit waits. Without warning, the woman launches herself towards Mary who barely has time to duck. She slips her shoes into her hands, heels out, and faces the direction the woman went. Two hands on her shoulders tell her that her attacker is very suddenly behind her.

“Dead.” She turns around slowly this time, taking in the woman across from her. Red hair, cold eyes, and a lack of expression that would make her mother proud. “Again.”

So Mary finds herself sparring with this agent, in her new uniform, nonetheless. She doesn’t have the flexibility in the dress to kick like she wants, so she lets a hand grab at the skirt in her attacker’s next jab at the legs. The fabric rips pleasingly and Mary tests her range of motion, rolling to dodge a kick to the kidney. It helps, but not one minute later she finds herself pinned with a hidden blade pressed to her throat.

It’s unnerving, really, to have a strange woman in a strangely-tight suit to be straddling her while pressing a very real knife to her neck, but just as quick as it happened, she’s helped up and given a cup of water.

“You fight well for someone trained by the FBI. Not enough for SHIELD’s standards, but that’s what I’m here for.” Mary turns around to refill her water only to see that the woman is once again gone, and here she is out a uniform and a good pair of stockings. Her stomach grumbles and she looks at the clock, surprised that it’s dinner hour. She slides the pumps back on her feet and pulls the skirt of her dress down to make it appropriate for public viewing then heads to the cafeteria.

It’s filled, and Mary makes a selection of something high in protein to help her recover. She sits with a friendly agent who waves her over, noting with sympathy the rip in her skirt and runs in her hose.

“She does that to everyone their first day,” is how she’s invited to the table, setting her tray down and feeling very strangely like a freshman in highschool all over again. “It’ll pass. You’ll get better. Not to her level, maybe, but you will get better.”

“Who is she?” The other agent shrugs, a twinkle playing in his eye. 

“One of the covert ops. We don’t know. She hands our asses to us all the same.” He grins. “I’m George Blanton from engineering.”

“Mary Morris, command,” she returns, shaking his hand firmly. George whistles.

“Command on your first day? Shit, Johnny, you hear that?” The bespectacled man across from them looks up from his manual before registering the words.

“Wow, really? Must’ve been hell. John, also from engineering,” he adds by way of greeting before burying his nose in his book.

Mary feels a bit overwhelmed as she eats her chicken and lettuce wrap, letting George’s voice wash over her as he tries to (unsuccessfully) bring John into his one-sided conversation. She tunes back in quickly once her brain registers her name being said.

“Mary, tell me about yourself,” he was saying. She sits back for a second and thinks about the best place to start.

“Moved around a lot when I was younger. Went off to college, majored in criminal justice, went straight to the FBI academy but they pulled me out to come here instead. I didn’t realize I was getting creds a month early though.” Her thoughts turned sadly to Nadia, but she didn’t try to dwell on things.

“A month early?” a new voice adds in. Mary looks over to see a woman on the other side of George. “They only do that for special cases.”

“Good special or bad special?” Mary jokes, masking the wonderful insecurity that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Where’d they hide your orders?” the other woman fires back.

“Air vent in the bedroom.” This time George, John, and the woman whistle together.

“We’ve got a high-profile on our hands, boys,” she says with a grin before turning to Mary. “I’m Denise, a liaison. The more difficult your orders are to find, the more they want to push you. And judging by your hair and your dress, you met the lady today too. Big plans ahead of you, dear. Big plans.”

“Mary,” she says by way of offering her name. “And thanks for the warning, I think.” The last part is muttered. Mary returns to her room later that evening to find the closet filled with more uniforms and a single black jumpsuit. _Next time_ , is written on a tag hanging from it, and she knows it’s talking about her next sparring session.

She changes into some night clothes and checks her marks compulsively, noting their dull grey color with pleasure. Turning on some music, she uses the SHIELD-issued tablet gained earlier today to write up a report.

It was something she was to do every evening until otherwise told. Fury wanted her to practice remembering the small details about the day, recalling everything she said, did, and who she interacted with, until everything organized itself in her brain on its own.

_November 17, 2011_

_Today was the first day in my job as a SHIELD Command agent. I reported at 0600 to Director Fury’s office with coffee in hand. During the morning I filed his completed reports. We ate lunch with various department heads. The afternoon was spent sparring with the lady. Over dinner I met three other agents from two other departments._

That done, she signs off of the tablet and crawls into bed, gratefully letting sleep claim her. She is tired, battered, and bruised. 

And Mary can’t wait to do it all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promiseee we will get to exciting stuff soon. I'm trying to establish Mary as a character, but I'm the one being too anxious to get all the wonderful super people in on the story. Oh well. Thanks for reading and lemme know what you think!
> 
> (Side note: it's finals week so updates might be slow.)


	4. Clearance Levels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary starts to read files. Lots of files.

The first thing Fury does when she reports to work the next morning is make her rewrite her report. She doesn’t understand, but does as he says.

_November 17, 2012_

_Day 1 of SHIELD Command, reporting to Director Fury. Day begins at 0600 and ends at 1700. The first six hours are spent learning his filing system and how he likes his coffee. At 1200 we had lunch with notable people including Alexander Pierce. After lunch I was sent to train with The Lady. This lasted until 1700. At dinner I met George and John from engineering, and Denise, a liaison. After dinner I returned to my rooms to write my preliminary report._

She sends the file to the director, who grunts in approval (Mary notices he still hasn’t finished his morning coffee). Then he gives her a list of things to do, which this time is not filing reports, but reading files. The first thing she notices is that the files are above her clearance.

“Sir?” she asks, glancing over to him hesitantly. “I’m not cleared to read these.” Fury frowns and taps a few keys on his keyboard. Mary hears a responding ding from her workstation and she investigates, part of her not surprised when she sees her clearance level updated from a four to a seven. “Three levels, sir?” she asks drily, picking up the files and leaning back in her chair.

“You work directly under me, Agent Morris. Your clearance level should really be as high as mine to assist me like I’ll need you to, but seven is where we’ll start you.” She nods her head in understanding of the silent warning. _”If you fuck this up, you’re done.”_ She is nervous about this change, of course, but the FBI had trained her to work under pressure. After all, that’s what every field agent needed. Not that she would see the field in her current position.

The next few weeks progress much in the same way. Mary reads file after file (she swears it’s the whole SHIELD database) and Fury quizzes her on the contents of each until she feels like she could win Trivial Pursuit: SHIELD Edition. Then her afternoons are spent getting her butt handed to her, but she thinks she’s getting better.

She still doesn’t know what to call the Lady, and when she asked, she got thrown to the mat in a particularly shameful lock. So Mary just starts calling her The Lady and she seems to get a kick out of that as the next take-down was a simple hand to the neck and the word “dead”. Mary could handle something like that. 

Mary stops her one day after their training with a question. “Do I measure improvement by the fact that it took you one second longer than yesterday to take me down?” She gets an honest-to-goodness laugh from the woman in red hair and hears the first sentence she never would have expected from her.

“We’ll do yoga tomorrow.” Mary considers that as a yes, she could mark herself improved, as even the most painful yoga pose would be a walk in the park compared to her normal afternoons. She still doesn’t understand why Fury insists on these sessions for a non-field agent, but she’s in the best shape of her life.

George and John become her regular dinner partners, where they comment on the various states of disarray they find her hair in after sparring sessions. She’s learned to watch her mouth around them as their clearance level is only four, which means she can’t really discuss her mornings with the pair of engineers. Instead, she describes her afternoons.

“I’ve broken the barrier,” she announces as she sits down at the table, taking a long drink from her bottle of water. “I have heard more than the word ‘dead’ pass from the Lady’s mouth.” They both turn to look at her with sheer adoration in their faces and it makes her flush.

“Well?!” George demands, stealing her well-deserved cookie off of her plate. “You don’t get this back until you spill.”

Fake groaning in disappointment, Mary takes a bite of her meal (rice and chicken and corn) before replying. “I asked if her taking one second longer to take me down than yesterday meant I was improving.” 

John whistles. “That’s bold.” Mary shrugs.

“She told me we would be doing yoga tomorrow. I get a break! No more whoopings that cause me to crawl in here!” George places the cookie back on her plate with a grin and claps her on the back.

“Pretty impressive, Morris. Command’ll make a stellar agent out of you yet.” She flushes again and finishes her food in silence, letting George and John talk about something science related. Nodding to them as she finished, Mary returns to her room to write her report. That done (and detailed, like Fury wants), she takes off her uniform and runs her hands over the marks on her shoulder and hip. They’re bold, they’re black, and she falls asleep content.

\---

When Mary wakes up the next morning, it’s 0530 and she’s going to be late for work. And that is 100% not okay. Scrambling out of bed, she takes a poor man’s shower, twists her hair into a braid and a bun, pulls on the new uniform and heels, and runs to get Fury’s coffee. She’s in his office with a minute to spare, the cup still full and her eyes only halfway betraying how late she slept. 

“Good morning, Director,” she greets, trading his papers for the coffee in her hands. She gets a grunt in return as the first sip of his morning drink goes down. 

“There are files on your desk. Read them.” She nods and sits down, noting the higher clearance on the file. Before she says anything, she checks her levels in the computer and notes that it’s been increased again to level eight. She spares a glance at Fury, who merely fixes her a metered gaze, and she turns to the files.

Tesseract. Steve Rodgers. SSR. Tony Stark. Bruce Banner. Natasha Romanov. Clint Barton. Thor.

“What is going on, Directory Fury?” she asks, standing in her confusion and her anger. These are dangerous names, dangerous files to go through. She is _not_ going into this blind. 

“Read them, Agent.”

“No. Tell me what is going on,” she says, looking at him with a deep feeling of dread settling in her stomach. “Is this why you were gone last week? Dealing with the meltdown that had command on high alert and even pulled Hill out of office?”

“You’re intelligent, Morris.”

“Would you have taken me if I wasn’t?” The bitter retort is out of her mouth before she can stop it. Softly, she adds, “Sir, please. I am your assistant. I can’t assist you if I don’t understand.” Fury fixes her with another long stare that makes her sit back in her seat.

“Read your files, Mary.” She glances up in surprise at the use of her first name. “I’ll explain over lunch.”

With that promise, Mary dives into the paper trail, reading everything she could find about the names on the desk in front of her. She reads about the Tesseract, how it was used in World War II, how Howard Stark tested it, and then how it was taken by force only five days ago. How Fury had managed to hide this major meltdown from her she didn’t know.

She reads about Steve Rodgers and the SSR, how Project Rebirth made him into a super-soldier. How he lost his best friend and right hand man and how he disappeared in a plane crash protecting America. How he was found and woken up.

She reads about Stark and Banner, the two scientists who had their own screwy lives to deal with. Stark lost his parents and took on the company, only to be kidnapped and reliant on a reactor in his chest to live. Banner tried to recreate the serum used on Rodgers and ended up with a big green friend to keep him company for the rest of his life.

How Romanov and Barton are the best spies SHIELD will ever have. How Romanov trains agents in her spare time--

“You’ve had the Black Widow train me?” She shoots an incredulous gaze at Fury’s desk before something doesn’t feel right. In one motion, Mary draws her gun and trains it on the air vent above his head, not moving a muscle as whatever was behind it froze.

“You can’t shoot her through those grates, Romanov. And she’s got the clearance for it.” Fury’s calm voice breaks her intense concentration on the vent. It slides open and out drops the woman who’s been giving her a near daily ass-kicking, neatly engaging the safety of her pistol and tucking into a holster at her hip.

“Fastest time yet, Fury.” Mary watches her warily, unsure of what the Black Widow wanted. She’s at least already made that connection. The director only nods in response to her comment, and Mary takes that as permission to holster her weapon and return to the files on her desk. A double tap on the wood causes her to respond automatically.

“Agent Morris, Command. Level Eight clearance and Director Fury’s personal assistant,” she recites, eyes not moving from the papers about the prince from Asgard. _Aliens. How lovely,_ she thinks, wondering what surprise SHIELD could throw at her next.

Mary should have known to keep her mouth shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big reveal next chapter. I'm excited. I'm also done with finals! Wooooo!
> 
> You lovely people can find me on tumblr: [laceface writes](http://www.lacefacewrites.tumblr.com/). Asks are open, I talk about my fics, and reblog anything super-duper Marvel related. I'd appreciate it if you joined me!
> 
> EDIT: thanks to DarknessEvernight13 for picking up a major mistake I made in character placement. That's been edited out. The real chapter 5 will be up soon!


	5. The Carrier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary joins the director on the helicarrier.

Mary prepares to leave her room, unlocking the door only to see a certain brunette agent standing on the other side of the threshold. 

“Agent Hill!” she exclaims, surprise momentarily overtaking her. “What can I do for you?”

Hill pushes her into the small room and shuts the door, tapping a short code into the keypad next to the door. She pauses again, waiting to hear an echoing beep before turning to face Mary with a grave look on her face.

“Grab your go bag and pack your extra. We leave in 30 minutes.”

“Do I need anything other than the basics?” Mary asks, gleaning from a look in Hill’s eyes that there was more here than a simple training exercise.

“Extra comms and workstations are provided and your pleasure reading will be files, so no, I think you’ll be fine,” is the reply, and Hill taps out another code on her keypad before leaving. Mary moves to pack up her second go-bag instead, including the newly-issued jumpsuit and boots she could choose to wear instead of her normal skirt and heels outfit. She keeps the dressier version on for now, figuring she could always change later if it was necessary. Besides, her sparring partner has kept her well trained on how to fight in pumps.

She slings the duffle over one shoulder and grips the handles of the second bag, making a detour for the director’s coffee. Shawn, the barista who makes sure Director Fury can function like a normal human being, raises an eyebrow at her bags and merely wishes her good luck before turning to make another agent’s order. Mary likes that he’s never questioned her own lack of beverage each morning, and the small comment saying that he noticed makes her feel more at home than in any other place she had been so far.

She steps inside Fury’s office within a few minutes, only be greeted by Hill again.

“I suggest you drink that for yourself. The director won’t be needing it this morning.” Mary makes a face, turning to drop the full cup in the trash can by her desk. 

“I don’t drink coffee.” At Hill’s look, she explains herself. “What happens if I’m stuck somewhere without a supply? I don’t want to suffer from a caffeine withdrawal.” Something tells her that was a good response as she follows Agent Hill back into the hallway. As they walk, Mary pulls up the map of the facility she had mostly committed to memory and realizes that they are heading towards elevators with rooftop access. _A helicopter, then?_ she wonders, extrapolating different scenarios that would require a roof on the short ride to the top. 

She had just reached the idea of Thor arriving with a chariot of other-worldly beings when the elevator dinging tosses her out of a daydream. Adjusting the strap on her shoulder, she steps out onto the roof, squinting, and hears the helicopter before she sees it. Hill motions her forward and the two make their way to the chopper. Mary chucks her bags inside and climbs in, strapping in carefully and pulling the headset on.

“Ready for takeoff,” the pilot says as a few agents outside slam the doors shut.

“We’re heading to the helicarrier,” Hill shouts, her face not nearly as serious as normal. “That’s where the director is now. We’ve got a few new faces joining us soon, so he wants you to get acquainted and settled as soon as possible.”

“So you mean by tomorrow morning?” Mary shouts back, a smile quirking at her lips. Hill grins at her quickly.

“Exactly!”

The flight takes them over the tail of Maryland and Delaware and out into the Atlantic, where they touch down on a landing pad that could easily be mistaken for a normal aircraft carrier. Hill doesn’t wait for the blades to stop spinning, opting to push Mary out of the helicopter as soon as they had touched down. She gathers her things and follows Hill out onto the deck, shouting to be heard.

“Do I report to the director now or can I go put my stuff down?” Hill grabs her arm and pulls her in the closest door, but both women blink as their eyes adjust to the dimmer atmosphere.

“The crew quarters are several decks below,” she explains, once again leading Mary through several twisting turns. “Do you understand how the compartment numbering works?” Mary looks up to notice a string of numbers and letters on the head of each doorway they step through. She shakes her head at Hill, who taps a few things into the phone that’s always at her hip. “I’ve sent a cheat sheet to the tablet you’ll find once we get to your workstation on the bridge.” She finally stops at one doorway after countless stairs, twists, and turns (Mary could’ve sworn they went up a set of stairs only to go back down it later) and taps the letter L above their heads. “L for living quarters, Morris. Don’t forget it.”

Mary nods briskly and drops her bags on the bunk on the right side of the room, noting Hill digging around in a bag on the left side. “Are these also your quarters?” she asks. Agent Hill merely nods before striding out of the room again, leaving Mary to catch up.

\---

“How nice of you to join us,” she hears Fury say as she’s trying to take in the sights from the bridge. Mary just nods, still trying to take everything in. The background bustle makes her think of walking through the halls of SHIELD. Normally everyone freezes when they pass by, but here no one bats an eye when Fury barks out an order or turns to talk to someone to make a minor adjustment. 

“The plans don’t do it justice,” she finally says, turning to look at him with a shine in her eye. 

“You’ll be well acquainted soon enough,” Fury responds, not unkindly. “I need you to help Agent Romanov prepare the lab for Dr. Banner.” The redhead makes herself known with a squeak of her heel on the floor as she approaches, and Mary is grateful for that. She doesn’t want to drop her tablet on the floor.

“You’ll find schematics in your documents,” the Black Widow says. Mary follows her down the hall and away from the bridge, her heels clicking on the fine flooring. Poking around with the stylus, she pulls up the plans for the lab and begins to study them. 

“Are we verifying everything is in place?” she asks as Agent Romanov stops outside the door to key in her clearance. Mary flashes her badge over the reader and waits for hand and eye confirmation before following her into the lab. 

“In a sense, yes.” The other woman starts to climb up the wall, and Mary just watches her reach into an air vent and pull herself up curiously. “I’ve got security. You’ve got everything else.” Mary turns to her tablet, flicking the plans on the screen to the 3D displays in the lab. She uses them as a reference, drawing lines through the components she finds in the lab. She recognizes the different machines by picture only and makes sure the screens are positioned as exact as possible.

“Turn the screens a few degrees left or right than what the file says.” Romanov’s voice echoes from the ceiling. “Don’t want the doctor to think we’ve been stalking him.” Mary keeps her thoughts to herself -- _Haven’t we?_ \-- as she nudges the monitors out of order. As a last gift from herself, she seeks out a warming plate, a pitcher of water, a tea kettle, and various types of tea. 

“I read his file,” is the explanation she offers as Romanov gives her a cursory glance. She feels like she shouldn’t need to explain herself, but at the same time a general fear of the dangerous people who would be coming onto the helicarrier soon makes her want to please them all.

Mary returns to her workstation after the lab was finished, finding some files waiting for her in her inbox. They are electronic copies, thankfully, but still equally as important to look at. She frowns at reading the first. A report on the meltdown. Useful, but still not something she is looking forward to.

She settles in to read, idly sipping from the bottle of water she keeps by her. At least she could finally understand what happened.

\---

 _Yesterday sucked_ , is Mary’s only thought as she wakes up and gets ready for the day, pulling on her standard uniform (she still didn’t have the courage to wear the full jumpsuit like Agent Hill) and making her way down to the bridge to report to Fury. Coffee isn’t her responsibility anymore. Instead, the director seems to be relying on both her and Agent Hill to keep himself sane as they trudge into international waters.

“Agent Coulson will be picking up Captain Rogers in about one hour, sir,” she announces as she nears his command center, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her head. “Agent Romanoff is on her way with Dr. Banner from India now.” Director Fury nods and turns to ask a question of Agent Hill, the two glancing back at her once. She fidgets but doesn’t look away, moving only when Fury dismisses her to her workstation. 

Mary spends a few hours organizing her digital file collection and glancing through the emails in her inbox. She apparently needs to redo her firearms certifications, but that has to wait until they land. She receives an urgent email from an address unknown to her, and after doing some precautionary virus-scans, opens the document. Her eyebrows raise and she quickly transfers the email to her tablet, practically sprinting over to where the director sat deep in conversation with Agent Sitwell.

“Sir,” she starts, not even caring that she’s interrupting their discussion. “Secretary Pierce just sent me an urgent email.” The look he fixes on her isn’t one she’s seen before, and Sitwell leaves without any prompting. “He wants to know if STRIKE needs to prepare some people.”

Fury shakes his head. “I’ll talk to the man myself. Don’t respond. But don’t worry, it’s--”

“Sir, our company’s here.” Agent Hill’s voice breaks through to them and Fury nods.

“Alright everyone, we’ve got guests. Let’s play nice,” he announces to the room at large. Mary steps back to stand by her workstation, watching as Hill and the director bring the helicarrier into flight. She has her tablet in her hands and is watching, eyes wide and alert, as the crew responds to orders and work together as they trained. Reading about the carrier did nothing to convey its sheer size and the scope of its technology. It all has Mary reeling. She hears a door behind her slide open, but ignores it as she keeps an eye on the bustling activity.

“All engines operating,” Hill announces. “SHIELD emergency protocol 193.6 in effect. We’re at level, sir.” Fury nods his assent, and Mary notices something akin to his version of happiness in his voice.

“Good. Let’s vanish.” Mary hears the various people in charge of the reflection panels begin their sequences, and she would give practically anything to be able to see them engage from below the carrier. Her eyes on Fury as he walks away from his post, she falls into place behind him and tries not to gawk at the two men waiting at the table for them.

“Gentlemen,” Fury greets them. Mary watches curiously as Steve Rogers hands him a ten dollar bill, and her confusion spikes as he cracks a hint of a smile at the little piece of money. She follows the Captain (still refusing to let her inner self freak out over a superhero within touching distance) until she notices Hill glances his way. Instead, she turns her attention back to the other man waiting.

“Doctor, thank you for coming,” Fury greets, sticking a hand out. Dr. Banner hesitates, she notices, before finally responding with a quick shake.

“Thanks for asking nicely.” She keeps an ear on the rest of their pleasantries but begins to check the tablet, making sure the lab they had set aside for him was ready for use. Mary sends a ping to Agent Romanov before turning around, only to find the woman crouching next to the computer running a search on Agent Barton. 

Their eyes meet and the red-head gives her a brief nod before she adds to the conversation, and Mary returns to her tablet.

“Call every lab you know,” Dr. Banner was saying, and Mary begins to type furiously, pulling up a list of major laboratories in the US to begin their contact list with. She scribbles quick notes with the stylus -- “spectrometers, roof, gamma rays” -- and sends it to her workstation so she can start the contact when she’s dismissed.

“I’m starting on that right away, sir,” she says when Fury glances her way, making a show of the scribbles on her screen. “Will you provide the tracking algorithm to the labs, Dr. Banner? I can provide a list of contact points so we don’t have to reach every single lab at once.” He blinks and suddenly all of the focus is on her. She sees a small nod of approval from the director in her peripheral vision while Banner thinks over her suggestion.

“Yes, I think that could work. If we can send it out to a few key seeds, they can share it with the other contacts. Do you have somewhere for me to work?” Fury nods and Agent Romanov departs with the doctor.

“I’ll be in touch, Dr. Banner!” Mary calls after him and turns back to Fury and Rogers. 

“Agent Morris, let me introduce Captain America,” he says. Mary switches her tablet to her left hand and holds her right out for a handshake.

“A pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was doing some reading thru the MCU timeline and realized I majorly overestimated how much time the events of The Avengers took. But, I have creative liberty as a fic writer, so this is a much more relaxed version of the movie. I've stretched the events out to take somewhere between 1-2 weeks instead of just 5 days.
> 
> Hopefully I can get another update out soon :)


	6. Surprise!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary meets Steve (kinda), does some science-y stuff (kinda), and helps find a fugitive. Kinda.

The tablet falls to the floor with a clatter and she freezes, looking up into the face of America’s poster child. He squats down to scoop up the tablet and holds it out to her.

“The honor is all mine,” she finally squeaks out, daring to brush her fingers against his as she takes the tablet from his hand. Captain Rogers hisses and Mary closes her eyes as she feels the words on her hip inscribe themselves in her skin over again. A warm feeling settles in her heart and she opens her eyes, green meeting blue. Fury opens his mouth to say something but Mary stops him.

“Later, yes, I know,” she says. “I’ve got labs to contact and you have debriefing to do.” She turns to look at Captain Rogers (she can’t call him anything else). “Quite frankly, I’m trying very hard not to lose it right now so I’m going to go distract myself. We’ll talk later.” She strides away from the men, refusing to make eye contact with anyone on the bridge and ignoring the blush she can feel burning across her cheeks.

So she runs away from the thing she had been chasing her whole life. It isn’t easy, walking away from her soulmate -- _Captain America_ , really?! -- but she has a job to do and she can’t focus and she’s sure the reality won’t set in until she’s in her room at night and trying to hold herself together while Hill sleeps in the next bunk over.

But still, she can’t understand, why the timing of the universe is so off-kilter that she finally finds part of herself in the middle of a life-or-death meltdown that could determine the fate of the entire planet. And, worried about her job, Mary places it above her other half (or third?) and runs away from the man whose writing is on her hip (and who bears her own words) to distract herself so there isn’t a panic attack in the middle of the bridge.

Mary plops down into her workstation’s seat and forwards her tablet notes to her computer, pulling up a communication line to start spreading the spectrometer news to labs around the world. She begins with major centers in the US, telling them to contact all other labs within a 250 mile radius. For locations in more remote areas, she increases the radius accordingly, making sure the nation is covered. 

She buries herself in her work, steadily finding labs in major cities in the rest of the world, pulling from a list SHIELD already had drawn up as important contacts. She tries not to think about the tall man with the blonde hair a few meters away, talking with Fury as he’s brought up to speed on the very thing she only just found out about. She tries to ignore the eyeballs she can feel on her every so often, knowing that others in the room might wonder why Director Fury’s personal assistant dropped her tablet. 

Mary looks up once only to lock eyes with Agent Hill. A raised eyebrow from the other woman is a question -- _Can you keep working?_ She just looks back in response and starts typing out a message, not breaking their contact. Hill nods once and turns back to her own screens, leaving Mary to drown in her thoughts again. 

Captain America. Of all the people in the world, Captain Steve Rogers, America’s poster child and the paragon of American military service. He, who fought racial discrimination by working with Japanese, French, and black men without a second thought. He, who defied orders to save an entire camp of POWs. He, who lost his best friend and then gave up his life for his country, only to return seventy years later as a man out of time.

He, who Mary did a report on in middle school and high school. Whose life story she (and every other American) knows forwards and backwards. She literally knows every history lesson on this man while he knows nothing about her except that she ran away from his touch.

Mary chokes back a bitter laugh as she ponders, for just a moment, what her parents would say if she knew Captain America was the mark they tried to hide for so long. A shadow over her shoulder causes her to turn, finding the director waiting for her.

“I’ve finished drawing up the labs to contact and sending out the appropriate message, sir,” she says, pulling up a draft for him to look over. “Once I’ve spoken with Dr. Banner about the specifics, they will receive an update and push all data back to us via a secure connection.” He nods approval.

“Morris, listen. I know you don’t want my pity and I know you’ll continue to operate to your best ability. You always have, even with the bombshells I’ve tossed your way to make sure you were up to par.”

“You’ve been training me to deal with something like this?” The sad thing is, it actually makes sense. Fury nods again. “So you expected something like that--” she waves her hands wildly at the conference table-- “to happen?”

“Not that exactly,” he admits. “But SHIELD deals with some of the weirdest things out there. Shortly we will have a god joining us. You needed to adapt fast.” Mary scowls as he continues. “You’ll get time to talk to talk him. I’m not that inhuman. It just has to wait.”

Mary nods. “Do you still need facial rec done, sir?” As Director Fury explains what he needs, Mary grabs her tablet and starts pulling up the reference photos for Loki, Erik Selvig, and Agent Barton. She walks across the bridge and down a set of stairs to where Agent Sitwell sits.

“I’ve got your references,” she announces, pushing them to the stations around as the techs start the software. “Patch my station and tab in, please. I want to know the second you get any hits. Keep Romanoff and Rogers apprised of the situation as well. ” Sitwell nods and she thanks him, turning to walk back to Banner’s lab. Agent Romanoff passes her as she makes her way and also nods, but one of recognition, not greeting. Mary returns the look but clicks on, finding Dr. Banner and Tony Stark in the lab.

“Dr. Banner? Mr. Stark?” she greets as she walks in. The two don’t look up from their mumblings, and Mary is not surprised to see that they already buried in their work. Walking behind of the floating screens, she causes it to go blank for a moment.

“My science!” Mr. Stark exclaims, blinking wildly for a moment. “You! Why did you take it away?” Fury had warned Mary about Stark and his shenanigans. For all his childish behavior, the man was a genius, so she did respect him. Somewhat.

“Because I need to speak with you and Dr. Banner about that spectrometer calibration,” she replies easily, tapping her badge to the edge of the screen. Stark’s precious science was sent to another screen and the list from her tab took its place. Dr. Banner joins them, staring critically at the list she populated. Minimizing it for the moment, she taps the screen from the back to pull up a spinning globe with little pins scattered across it. Each pin had a small radar sweep going around it. Taking a breath to speak, she looks up to the critical eye of Tony Stark.

“Are you one of Fury’s gremlins?” he asks. “Does that mean your first name is also Agent?” Mary laughs shortly.

“In a sense. I control his coffee supply so it’s not as bad as it could be. I actually have a first name, too,” she retorts. “Mary Morris.” But she keeps her introduction brief, forcing the information on the screen back into focus. “Those are all of the labs ready to scan. We essentially have the whole globe covered. I just need your algorithm to push out to them and then we will have a global network scanning for gamma rays.”

She watches as Banner pans the globe, checking a few pins near major cities that she had color-coded differently. He pulls up the list and flicks through it, finally nodding. “I like it.” He walks over to another large monitor that has what looks like a cross between calculus and computer program on it. Suddenly, her tab and the screen ding, and Mary sees a short message from Banner pop up.

“I’ll get this sent out right away,” she says, removing her work from the screen and leaving it ready for the two scientific brains to go back to their calculating. It’s work she won’t begrudge them, especially when she has her own to do. Like talk science-y jargon that she really doesn’t understand with various labs around the world.

Still, Mary walks back out to her workstation, docks her tab, and begins to type up the message that will be sent along with Banner’s magic equation to every major lab in the world, and subsequently every minor lab in the world. The draft takes her slightly longer than she would like because the secure address the labs were to broadcast the scans to for SHIELD’s benefit wasn’t loading, so she had to pause to do minor IT magic. Thankfully, everything works itself out, so Mary hits the send button on the memo with encryption data, server address, and algorithm.

She grabs the faithful tab and walks to Fury, waiting patiently in the background until he finishes his discussion with Coulson and Rogers. “Sir,” she interjects, thrusting the tablet into his field of view. “We’ve got the labs scanning and I’ve set alerts to go to myself, the lab, and Sitwell’s station just in case a facial rec turns up in the same area.” Fury’s eye tracks the map that appears on the screen now, giving the smallest of nods that Mary has learned is his seal of approval.

“What are you tracking?” Mary is surprised that Captain Rogers asked her a question, and she turned to look at him with a small hesitation -- one born of embarrassment for her earlier actions and a hint of shyness too.

“Dr. Banner asked that we tune spectrometers to gamma rays and scan. So I pulled up a list of major laboratories around the world--” here Mary paused to minimize the map and show him the list she made, “--and we sent them a message that contained an algorithm Dr. Banner created, the instructions for tuning the spectrometers, and an encrypted server online to push their results back to us.” She flips back to the map again, watching the radars make their sweeps. “The second any of these radars pick up something, we’ll know.” 

Captain Rogers reaches out uncertainly for the tablet, and Mary passes it to him. Their fingers graze once again and they both pause, the touch surprising them both. _I’m in middle school all over again,_ Mary thinks, berating herself. They could act like adults and remain professional. Rogers is staring at the map critically, seemingly mesmerized by the scan doing its work. “What else are you tracking?” he asks, and Mary looks back at the tablet to see a facial rec scan is trying to get her attention.

“Tap on it,” she tells him, pointing to the blinking icon. He does so and the screen fills with a picture of Loki, and a location flashing under the grainy picture. Rogers looks up in surprise even as Mary and Sitwell speak out in the same breath.

“Sir, we’ve got a match!” Mary rushes over to join the agents, pulling up a map of Germany on her screen and flashing it at Fury. “Stuttgart, Germany,” Sitwell was saying pulling up a live feed of the camera. The captain reaches for her tablet and she passes it to him absentmindedly, staring at Sitwell’s screen with interest. 

“He’s in a tux,” she notes, frowning at the image. “It looks like some kind of ball or gala. What is he doing there?” Agent Mihn, next to Sitwell, pulls up a quick search.

“It’s a scientific benefit,” she confirms, pointing to the relevant date on the screen.

“Captain, you’re up.” Fury’s voice cuts through their musings. Rogers hands the tablet back to Mary and nods, turning to leave.

“Good luck,” she tells him quickly. He turns to look at her, and a hint of a smile crosses his face. As he leaves, she mentally traces his path through the carrier. First, to the armory, to don the new suit they had made for him. Second, to the hangar, to board a quinjet. Third, he would fly out from the belly of their whale, towards Germany, capturing Loki and bringing him in.

Mary taps away on the tablet, asking the labs in Germany to concentrate their scans for cluster recognition. Knowing there’s nothing else she can do but wait, she goes back to her chair and sits. She can wait. She’s good at that. She decides to spend her time reviewing the tapes of the initial attack on the Tesseract, wondering if maybe there was a clue that had been missed.

Probably not, but a hundredth pair of eyes wouldn’t hurt anything. Or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sneakily drops chapter into archive and slinks out*


	7. Catching up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary monitors the return of their fugitive and is able to steal a few quiet moments with Steve.

Mary doesn’t watch whatever’s going down in Germany live because she knows she’ll end up reviewing it later. While the tapes from Loki’s first attack don’t reveal anything new, she watches them to pass the time. It was disconcerting, how easily Agent Barton and Dr. Selvig were...convinced to Loki’s side. Magic wasn’t something she ever considered as being real, but apparently it was.

SHIELD certainly made her rethink a lot of things about the world.

The labs in Germany respond to her message about the clusters, saying they’re not seeing any gamma radiation across the country. Frowning, Mary sends a note to Dr. Banner and to Agent Sitwell, letting them know they can at least cut the search away from Germany’s borders. Leaning back in her seat and taking a sip of water, she sighs.

Life appears content enough to toss her three curveballs and a slider, Mary decides, pondering over the last hour or so. First, one soulmate here? In SHIELD? Second, that soulmate is a national icon her mother even admitted to having a schoolgirl crush on. Third, maybe she should’ve been a bit nicer and not brushed him off before fleeing to the safety of the lab and her work. It was cowardice and full on shock that sent her scurrying away, although she wasn’t sure that she could even realistically have stayed behind to ask him question and talk with him.

Maybe they’d catch dinner together that night?

Who was she kidding. Captain Rogers had a team to get to know and an other-worldly fugitive to capture. Mary didn’t think he would have time to sit down and eat, though she wasn’t naive enough to think that maybe he wanted to actually talk to her. After all, gaining a soulmate is a pretty monumental occasion.

A sudden thought hit her. Did the Captain have another soulmate, too? Or was she his only one? If she was, he wouldn’t have been born with a soulmark and would’ve only found one when he woke up from the ice. But if there was someone else in the picture…

The thought drives her crazy. If she is his only one, would he be jealous? Try to keep her away from whoever was on her shoulder? But if he has another one, would she be able to survive if they didn’t share a soulmate?

Multiple soulmarks was a rare and undocumented occurrence. Only a few people in the spotlight had ever admitted to having two, and even then a polygamous relationship between the three people tied via soulmarks was looked down upon. Mary had already done some research, and the famous soulmark scientist from the 80s, Leonard Grant, was the first to publically say he had more than one.

What made it even more shocking was that his soulmates were both male. While homosexual relationships weren’t uncommon due to the nature of the mark, they were usually kept secret. One of the most commonly discovered practices during the more conservative times is that male soulmates would seek out female soulmates and they would marry one another, then live in a duplex or similar close-quarters arrangement. It allowed the soulmates to remain near their partner and have a stake in their life while giving the illusion of a “normal” relationship.

Mary doesn’t have that option. She’s got a triangle that could quite possibly not even be a triangle. It sets her heart rate higher and she worries, musing more and more over the thoughts in her head. When she has a chance, Mary decides she needs to do more research about Grant and other twice-marked people to read their stories and figure out how they made it work.

“They’re coming back with the prisoner, sir,” Mary hears Agent Hill confirm. She knows this as well, seeing the status of the quinjet, and at a look from Hill, slips on a headset to talk to the jet.

“This is command, over,” she says once the connection is established.

“Widow,” comes the response, clear as a whistle. Mary is thankful that their communication technology isn’t as garbled as walkie talkies.

“Is he saying anything?” They’ll want to document every word that comes out of Loki’s mouth, for analysis for hidden meanings or potential clues to the base he’s set up.

“Not a word.” Agent Romanoff’s voice turns up at the end, and Mary can see one of her smirks in her mind’s eye.

“Just get him here, please. Fury says we’re low on time. Command out.” She sets the headset back and pushes a feed from the jet to her tab, walking up to the director to join him and Agent Hill.

“ETA is about twenty minutes,” Hill was saying, nodding at Mary as she joins them.

“Widow says he’s not talking,” she adds unhelpfully, showing them the tablet feed. Loki is just sitting there, strapped in quietly, as Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark converse off to the side. Mary finds herself staring at both the men, unmasked and talking like colleagues. It’s not far fetched, thinking that they’d work well together, especially given how much Howard Stark admired Steve Rogers. They are some of the most powerful men in American history, she realizes. Rogers, who singlehandedly brought down the Red Skull and HYDRA, and Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist Stark, took his weapons out of the world and helped stall a universal arms race no one knew was happening.

Snapped out of her reverie by a flash of lightning coming from the feed, Mary frowns and checks the jet’s location. What was clear skies mere minutes ago has transformed into a massive thunder cell, complete with lightning hitting the jet every few seconds. “Sir…?” she asks, showing the storm to Director Fury. He frowns, and just as he opens his mouth to speak, the video shows Rogers and Stark suiting back up. Loki looks small and scared in his seat.

Unable to do anything to help the jet, Mary watches uncertainly as wind fills the cabin and a red-caped figure flies into the jet. The large, muscled man rips Loki out of the seat belts, grabs him by the neck, and leaps from the jet without a second thought.

“Thor,” she, Hill, and Fury say at the same time. Stark and Rogers follow Thor out of the the jet (though Rogers does grab a parachute first, thank goodness), and Mary finds herself with a hand on her hip, rubbing the words on her skin. Without asking, she turns back to her station and reconnects with the jet, getting Widow on the other line.

“Was that Thor?” she asks, accessing the external cameras.

“Yes,” came the reply.

“Are you stable?” The cameras show nothing but grey clouds. It seems the lightning has passed.

“There wasn’t any damage. The reports are fine. We’re going to circle until Stark reports back in.”

“Copy. I’ll keep the director updated. Out.”

Before Mary can get up to join him, Fury has walked over to her desk.

“Thor took Loki to the wind. Stark and Rogers are after him. Widow is keeping the jet circling until they hear a report back.” He nods thoughtfully.

“Keep me updated.” Fury turns away and leaves the bridge, giving Hill control of the ship. That means Mary now receives updates from Sitwell and other agents running searches or programs not pertinent to keeping them in the air. She stays at her station, anxiously scanning the feed from the jet. She wishes she could see what was happening.

\---

“Command, this is Widow.”

Mary perks up from idly flipping through logistics files, scrambling to respond in time to Widow’s call.

“What’s the update?” she asks.

“We’ve got them all back. Thor is joining us.”

“I’ll notify the director. Command out.”

Not seeing the director back on the bridge, she sends a message to his phone and gets up to let Hill know. She stands beside the other agent, listening to the live feed of status updates through the command center.

“Subject is being escorted through hallway twenty-four,” the voice cracks out. “Subject is heading to containment center.” A pause, and then, “Subject is in containment center. Lockdown complete.” 

She knows that’s where Fury is, talking to Loki, getting him...comfortable in his new surroundings. To put it nicely. “I’m going to go check on our scientists,” she tells Hill, stepping away from the agent. She nods, so Mary continues on her way. She wishes she wore the booted jumpsuit like Agent Hill. While used to walking in heels, the pumps weren’t particularly comfortable and she ran into problems with the heel getting stuck in some of the stairs around the carrier.

Tapping the glass door of the lab to warn of her entry, Mary walks in to some blue ball suspended in a device and Dr. Banner muttering over a screen while Mr. Stark leans back in a stool, looking only slightly beat up. 

“Fury’s gremlin!” he says, grinning wildly at her. 

“My name is Agent Morris, sir,” she responds, leveling him with a look Hill would be proud of. It doesn’t deter the billionaire -- not that she expected it to -- but at least he turned to serious matters.

“Updates for us?” She nods.

“Several, actually. Germany has ruled out any gamma radiation within their borders. I had them focus on the cluster recognition Dr. Banner mentioned once Loki was spotted to see if their base was close to the iridium. It wasn’t. So we know they’re not in Germany.”

“Only 195 left!” Mr. Stark chirps brightly. Dr. Banner looks up from his screen.

“Not Germany?” he asks. Mary nods patiently. He frowns and looks back down.

“Perhaps I could get you more tea, Dr. Banner? And some coffee for you, Mr. Stark?” she offers, taking note of the mug the calmer scientist is fumbling for as he scans lines of information. She takes their grunts to mean “yes” and shakes her head at the scene of both men buried in their work. Strangely endearing, in a way.

Leaving the lab, she turns a sharp corner and nearly runs into Captain Rogers. “Oh! I’m sorry,” she says, before seeing who exactly she narrowly avoided collision with. “Captain Rogers,” she adds respectfully, once again shy in front of him. He looks down at her, and Mary has a very difficult time keeping a coherent train of thought in her head.

His cowl is down, pulled behind his neck like a hood, and he hasn’t taken the uniform off yet. Bits of hair stick to his forehead, still wet from the combination of rain and sweat from his trip to catch Loki. “Agent Morris,” he replies in the same tone of voice, though looking at her strangely. “Please call me Steve. I was looking for Director Fury, if you could help me find him.”

 _First name. Okay, I can do that,_ she thinks, pulling some strength from somewhere in her body. “Then you can call me Mary. Director Fury is currently briefing our new guest on his cell. He won’t be available for a little while yet. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she says, making her way around his body. An arm snakes out in front of her, but he stops himself before he grabs her.

“May I walk with you, Mary?” His voice is quiet, and Mary looks up at Captain Rog -- _Steve,_ she reminds herself -- hesitantly. There’s some emotion dancing on his face, and she can’t quite read it. Nodding, she sets off towards the canteen to get the tea and coffee for the scientists.

“Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark requested more fuel,” she explains as they walk down the hallways together. “I’m sure you’ve already seen the map, but hopefully this will give you a refresher to the location of food.” 

“Lead the way,” Steve replies, motioning for her to walk on ahead. They stride for a few minutes in silence. Mary is surprised to note that it isn’t uncomfortable, and things seem to just fall into place between them. “You probably did a report on me in school, didn’t you?” he finally asks, breaking their silence.

Her cheeks flush with pink and she gives a small nod. “We all did, at one point. You changed the nation, and we were supposed to know about it. Like with Martin Luther King, Jr. How do you think his grandkids feel about learning about him in history class, not from their parents?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t quite caught that reference,” he says, a small flush of his own appearing. Mary instantly feels more at ease, laughing lightly.

“It’s alright. You have a lot to catch up on, I’m sure. He isn’t the same Martin Luther who wrote the 95 Theses and founded Lutheranism, so don’t worry on that end. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a black minister in the 1960s who led the civil rights movement in America. He was assassinated, but is most famous for giving a speech called ‘I Have a Dream.’ Thanks to his work, desegregation happened all across the States, though we are still fighting it today.” Mary could have talked about MLK for a few hours, having extensively studied the civil rights movement for a project in college. She enjoyed history and learning more about it.

“Thanks for explaining,” he replies. “There seems to be a growing list of things I’ve missed out on,” he continues. “I can barely keep it straight.”

“Have you written it down?” she asks, looking up at him strangely. “We can get you a phone or tab or something if you need one.”

“I prefer good ol’ pen and paper.”

Somehow this doesn’t surprise her. Mary makes a mental note as they reach the canteen, where she helps herself to the boiling water and the coffee. She begins to stew one of Dr. Banner’s preferred brands while adding two lumps of sugar and a half pump of cream to Stark’s coffee.

“Is there any more to spare?” Mary grins up at Steve and moves out of the way.

“By all means, help yourself. It’s here for everyone on board.” She watches him pour a single cup of black coffee before returning the pitcher to its stand. With amusement, Mary picks up the mugs in one hand and carries the pitcher of coffee in the other. “Mr. Stark will want more,” she explains, walking a bit slower than normal to balance the liquids. Instead of sloshing all over the floor, she tries to keep things level enough that there won’t be a mess.

Steve takes the tablet in his free hand and they walk back to the lab. She can tell something is bugging him and she takes a peek out of the corner of her eye, watching him worry his lip in consideration. “Are you okay with...this?” he finally asks, looking down at her in concern. She doesn’t respond, simply thinking.

Was she? And even if she wasn’t, did she have a choice? Soulmates always ended up together. It was the one happy ending that movies never ruined. Hollywood has had its fair share of fake tattoos covering up an “embarrassing” mark or two people meeting while drunk and not remembering the next morning, but never has a marked pair _not_ gotten together. If she listened to her mother, not staying with her soulmate wasn’t even an option to consider.

“If by this, you mean us,” Mary finally says, pausing to look up at him. “I’ll be okay. It’s a lot to take in and we’re slightly dealing with a world crisis --” she earns a smile from that, “-- and it may take some time, but yes. I’m fine.” Steve nods, though his eyes seem sad.

“Let’s not wait too long, Mary.” The comment is somber and Mary flushes, remembering the transcription from his final conversation with Peggy Carter before the plane crashed into the Artic. Every child knows that conversation, and viewed it was one of the most romantic love stories around. It is popular speculation that he and Carter were soulmates, but now Mary doesn’t know what to believe. 

They reach the lab and Mary taps on the glass again before breezing inside with coffee and tea in hand. She sets the pitcher down on the now-empty warming plate this morning and sets their mugs next to each scientist.

“Thank you.” She’s surprised to see Dr. Banner actually paying attention to her, but she nods and smiles.

“Of course, Dr. Banner. If you need anything else, please let me know. Mr. Stark,” she says as she leaves, sliding out just as quietly as she came in. Steve is still holding her tablet and idly sipping the coffee as they return to the bridge. He sets both down on the table in the middle of the large upper deck before pulling a chair out for her.

Mary decides she could probably do her work from the table instead of her workstation, so she thanks him and sits, pulling the tablet over and frowning over some messages from the labs. “Still nothing,” she complains. “The labs haven’t found anything using Dr. Banner’s search pattern. It’s either not working or they’re well-hidden.”

Widow joins them, sitting on the opposite end. “What happened down there?” she asks Steve. Mary looks up from her screen to listen to his report on the fight between himself, Iron Man, and Thor.

“When I finally landed Stark was already taking a turn for the worst. I think Thor dented his suit a little. I told him we wanted to put an end to Loki’s schemes and then asked him to put his hammer down. That ended up being a mistake.” He smiles wryly. “He swung the hammer at me, I caught it on my shield, and there was a huge reverb and whiplash from the hit. Once we had all calmed down and talked, Thor took Loki back up to the jet and Stark gave me a lift.”

“Where was Loki during that?” Mary asks.

“Wherever Thor left him, I suppose,” Steve replies. Mary bit her lip, thinking.

“Why didn’t he escape while y’all were fighting? He had ample time, it sounds like, since you didn’t even get to ground until after Iron Man and Thor were done.” She looks over at Widow. “Do we have his scepter? Is that why he stayed?”

While the assassin never betrayed any emotion as they sparred together, here on the bridge, the redhead looked pensive. “I’ll find out,” she finally says. Mary hears a ping come from all of their phones -- something about Fury wanting them to stay on the bridge for a meeting. The message also went out to Banner and Stark.

“Maybe we’ll all found out,” Steve remarks, settling back in his chair and downing the rest of the mug. Mary pulls up the message on her tablet. What could Fury want this time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The muse is very strong for this one today. Enjoy :)


	8. Making Progress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is interrogated, and Mary and Steve share a quiet dinner.

Dr. Banner has joined them at the table, as well as a tall and burly Asgardian who Mary can’t help but be awed by. Mary pulls up the feed from the cell where Fury talks to Loki on the screens embedded in the table so they all can see and hear him.

“A mindless beast, who makes play he’s still a man,” he was saying. Mary watches Dr. Banner, who was pacing behind them, out of the corner of her eye. He doesn’t seem phased by the comments. Mary knows he’s heard far worse. “How desperate are you?” Loki continues, sneering at Fury. “You call upon lost creatures to defend you.”

“How desperate am I?” Fury counters. Mary looks down, playing with her thumbs. “You threaten my world with war; you steal a force you can’t hope to control; you talk about peace yet you kill because it’s fun.” She looks around the table. Thor, standing with his back to them, looking out into the clouds through the windows on the bridge. Steve, next to her, listening intently. Widow has her eyes fixed to the screen. 

“You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did.” Fury’s voice sounds colder now than ever. Mary thinks suddenly that she would never like to be on his bad side. Loki lets out a long breath before he speaks again.

“It burns you to have come so close,” he taunts in that strange accent of his. “To have the Tesseract, to have power…” He trails off. Mary looks up at the tablet just in time to see Loki back away from Fury. “Unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then be reminded of what real power is?”

Fury walks away. “Well, let me know if ‘real power’ wants a magazine or something.” Loki looks back at the security camera and seems to stare straight at the audience watching around the table. Mary is completely skeeved out by the guy. 

“He really grows on you, doesn’t he?” She’s actually surprised that Banner speaks first, considering how Loki directly attacked him.

“Loki’s going to drag this out,” Steve says. “So, Thor, what’s his play?” The tall blonde turns to face them, and Mary looks up with interest.

“He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.” 

“So...an army?” Mary asks, worry creeping into her voice.

“From outer space,” Steve has to add, looking at Thor with a straight deadpan. Mary wouldn’t have believed it either, had she not read of what happened in Puente Antiguo. 

“So he’s building another portal. That’s what he needs Erik Selvig for.” Banner’s musings don’t seem far off. Thor looks up in surprise.

“Selvig?”

“He’s an astrophysicist.”

“He’s a friend.” Mary could hear Thor’s voice crack with raw emotion. She knew the scientist was on SHIELD payroll, but she never made the connection. Now that she was thinking about it, she remembered the name pop up in Puente Antiguo quite a bit.

Widow looks up at Thor. “Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours.” Thor looks thoughtful, like he’s trying to consider why Loki would do something like that.

“Agent Morris brought up a good point earlier,” Steve adds, nodding at her. “Why did Loki let us take him? He didn’t escape while Thor and I were...speaking,” he finishes gracefully. “He’s not leading an army from here.”

“I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him.” Mary is once again surprised by Banner’s input, but it just furthers her resolve to try and get to know how each of these heroes act and think. 

“Have care how you speak.” Thor steps up to the table and stares down Dr. Banner. “Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he’s my brother.”

“He killed eighty people in two days,” Widow says, almost daring Thor to challenge her.

“He’s adopted.”

Mary has to stifle a laugh at that. Dark humor was never her thing, but she just feels overwhelmed at the moment and needs something to hold on to. Agent Hill catches her eye and she can see the laughter reflected back to her. 

“I think it’s about the mechanic. Iridium...what did they need the iridium for?” Banner is pacing again, fiddling with the glasses in his hands. 

“It’s a stabilizing agent.” Mary joins the table in looking up to watch Tony Stark (and Agent Coulson, she notes), join them. He says something to Coulson then turns back to the table at large. “Means the portal won’t collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD.”

“Did Selvig know about this before?” Mary asks. “Or was it something Loki told him? Because that would’ve been nice to know earlier.” Stark looks at her as if he’s surprised she’s speaking. She just gives him another one of withering looks, and instead of turning his verbal stream to her, he looks at Thor. “No hard feelings, point break,” he says, slapping the giant man on the arm. “You’ve got a mean swing.” Suddenly, his thought stream switches back to the iridium. “Selvig didn’t know it when he was with SHIELD. Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants.”

He moves to Fury’s station and Mary ignores him as he speaks randomly to the crew. They look at him strangely, and she steals a look at Steve to see he’s just as confused as the rest of them. “The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily,” Stark continues as if he never stopped. “Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube.”

Agent Hill looks at Stark in disbelief. “When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?”

“Last night.” Hill rolls her eyes.

“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Steve asks. Mary’s been keeping notes on the entire conversation, trying to take down anything she’d need to reference later.

“He’s got to hear the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb Barrier,” Banner says.

“Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect,” Stark counters.

“Well, if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any nuclear reactor on the planet.”

Tossing his hands into the air, Stark joins Banner. “Finally someone who speaks English!”

“Is that what just happened?” Steve asks Mary. She shrugs. She barely understood it, but only because she did some reading.

“I could talk to the nuclear reactors not in Germany,” she offers. “I would assume if we don’t get a response back from one, that’s where they’d be.”

Banner nods thoughtfully and Stark waves at her. “Work your magic, Fury gremlin.” Steve gives him a funny look at his comment, but his attention turns to Mary as she starts to type away on the tablet. She connects it to the screen embedded in the tabletop and uses the tablet as her keyboard, pulling up a list of the major nuclear reactors most likely to have what Selvig would need for Loki’s plans.

“Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you’d join him.” Mary doesn’t look up as Fury also joins them, continuing her work.

“Let’s start with that stick of his,” Steve suggests. “It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.”

“I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.”

Thor looks confused. “Monkeys? I do not understand.”

“I do!” Steve says proudly. “I understood that reference,” he tells Mary. She looks up briefly to smile at him.

“You’ve gotta start somewhere. Think you can type? I need an extra set of hands.” Steve nods, and Mary watches Dr. Banner and Stark go back to the lab. She activates the screen in front of Steve and waves down one of the agents walking by.

“Can you please get Captain America a tab?” In a few moments, Steve has his own tablet keyboard and screen combination ready to go.

She tunes out the hushed conversation between Director Fury, Coulson, and Hill, but notices Thor looking slightly lost. “There’s an open seat for you if you tire of standing,” she tells him motioning at the table.

“I thank you, Agent Morris,” he replies, though turns back to look out the windows. Leaving Thor to his thing, she looks back at Steve.

“So here’s the deal,” she starts. “This is the list of all the nuclear reactors on the planet.” Steve’s screen starts scrolling through a long list of names and locations. “You can narrow the list down with those filters on the left. We only want to look at reactors that have a fusion chamber. That means their rating is at least a 6 or they state fusion in their description.” He nods, looking down at the tablet uncertainly. “The keyboard is still laid out like the typewriters you would have used,” Mary adds, poking at the keys. “It’s just touchscreen, so you don’t actually press buttons. You just need to tap on the screen where you want to type, then you can start typing.”

She shows him quickly, tapping the filter list and typing “fusion” into it to start narrowing the list. “Let me know when those results are slimmed, please.” Steve nods and focuses on his work. Mary types out a message to the reactors they’ll contact, glancing around the room as she works. The bridge remains busy, with agents quietly running back and forth doing their own duties.

“I think I got it done,” Steve says uncertainly. Mary smiles at him.

“Great! Now, I just need you to remove the reactors located in Germany from that list, and we’ll be all set.” She takes a moment to watch him filter the search and run it again. He’s already gotten comfortable with the technology, so it only takes him a few quick taps. When it’s finished, Mary shows him how to send the list to her tablet, and then she uses it to send out the message.

“With any luck, these plants will respond and we can narrow down the ones that don’t have Loki’s minions in it.”

“Why did we cross out Germany?” Steve asks as she reads the confirmation message.

“Hmm?” Mary wasn’t paying attention, skimming through some quick brief Sitwell sent her.

“Germany?” Steve prompts again, placing a hand over the screen she was staring at.

“Sorry. Germany labs responded back with zero gamma radiation inside their borders,” mary explains, finally looking up at him. “They’ll be where the radiation is, so we can rule out the country as a whole. It seems like just the iridium they needed was inside her borders.” 

Steve nods thoughtfully and leans back in his chair, draining the last of his coffee cup. Mary reads over the file from Sitwell before excusing herself to go over and talk to him.

“Agent Sitwell,” she greets, picking her way carefully down the stairs to his level.

“Did you get my file?” She nods at his question.

“Yes. Did any other security cameras outside the lab pick up on Barton as he was leaving? They can’t have taken out all of the cameras in the city.” Sitwell frowns and turns to an agent Mary hasn’t seen before.

“Check on that for me, Brecher,” he says, skimming through the facial rec still running on Selvig. “No sign of the scientist either,” he adds. Mary sighs.

“Keep me posted. And get some rest. I see your first shift has left you behind.” Sitwell just shrugs and sits back at his desk. Mary walks away, shaking her head fondly. This job has turned into an agent-wrangling business, she decides.

She checks her watch and sees that it’s nearly 2100, and she realizes that her lunch had long since left her body. “We’re still playing a waiting game, Captain,” she tells Steve as she rejoins him at the table. “Want to go get some dinner then I’ll show you to your room?”

He nods, falling into step behind her easily. They retrace their steps from earlier back to the canteen. The midnight rations are starting to be set out, but Mary slides over to a small refrigerator and grabs a salad and a bottle of water. She finds an empty table in a corner and sits, rather surprised by the amount of food Steve comes back with. She doesn’t say anything (she had read his file, after all), but there’s a difference between reading about his eating habits and seeing them first hand.

They fall into another comfortable silence, Mary mixing up her salad while Steve digs into the spaghetti on his place. She doesn’t want to ask him how he’s adjusting because that’s just so contrite. There are plenty of people who already ask him that question, and she doesn’t want to become another one of them.

She looks up from her food to find him staring at her, and he looks away quickly when she notices.

“You’re allowed to look, y’know,” she finally says. He laughs, a quick and nervous one.

“I just...I didn’t expect to actually meet my soulmate,” he finally admits. “I woke up with a new mark on my arm, which is surprising enough, but to meet her on a mission?” He laughs again, this time humorless. “Not expecting that.”

“To be fair, neither was I,” Mary responds, pointing at him with her fork. “Yet alone for those words to belong to someone who was, by all accounts, killed in action.” The tone she uses is teasing but serious, because while every schoolgirl had a crush on the captain, no one ever expected to actually see him. For obvious reasons.

Steve shrugs. “I’ve always made a bad habit of going against what people expect of me.” It’s Mary’s turn to laugh.

“I have a feeling most people have been asking you questions,” she begins after a nervous lull in the conversation. “If you have anything you’d like to ask me, I’m more than willing to answer questions.”

He eyes her curiously before a mischievous glint appears in his eyes. “How did a nice girl like you end up in a place like this?”

“Oh my gosh,” Mary complains, slapping his arm. “I can’t believe you just said that. That’s like, the oldest line in the book.” He just grins and doesn’t say anything, waiting for her response. “Okay, fine. I was a criminal justice major in college, and after graduating, I took a job with the FBI. I was a month away from finishing my training before SHIELD stole me away and I found out I was to be Director Fury’s assistant. I spent most of my time reading files and training with Widow. Then Loki happened, and now I’m here.”

“So a secretary turned field agent?” Mary nods.

“More or less. I was training for field work in the FBI so I certainly wasn’t jumping in blind. I’m not the boots-on-the-ground agent like Widow, but I have to be prepared for when the Director finds himself in the middle of a storm. Like this one.” She waves her fork around to encompass the carrier.

“To be honest, this isn’t much different from what I’m used to,” Steve admits. “The environment is the same. The technology certainly has changed, but other than that… It’s not as a big of a transition as everyone was warning me about. There are lots of things I’ve missed, so I do have a lot to catch up on.” Mary smiles and reaches into the pocket of her skirt to pull out a small notebook and pen.

She slides it across the table to him.

“Here. Write down the things you don’t know or that people say you should catch up on, and we’ll work on it when we get a chance, okay?” He reaches out for the notebook and handles it carefully, flipping through it to feel the pages. The pen is small in his hands, but it slides into the elastic band that holds the book closed.

“Thank you, Mary,” he says, taking her hand in his own for a brief second. “Do you have suggestions?” She laughs.

“Music is my recommendation. Look up the top, oh, I dunno, 20 songs of each decade? Music has changed so much in the past five years, yet alone seventy.” She tries to not pause at the seventy. “It’s a good way to get caught up. TV and movies will have to come later. Same thing with novels. Those will take some time.”

Steve scribbles “top 20 by decade - music” in his notebook and closes it, carefully sliding the little book into his shirt pocket. A bell sounds through the ship, marking a change of shift. Steve takes her salad bowl and adds it to his tray, taking their dishes to the bin.

“Thank you,” she tells him. “Your quarters are actually with Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner, but I doubt they’ll be there much. They both tend to not sleep when science is involved.” They walk together, Mary’s heels clicking on the metal of the floor as she leads him to the door.

“Well, this is backwards,” Steve comments, and Mary rolls her eyes.

“Goodnight, Steve.”

She makes her way back to her own bunk and slips out of the skirt suit, collapsing into her bunk. Hill looks up from where she’s reading.

“Did you have a nice date?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” The other agent chuckles.

“Get some sleep. We’ve got another long day ahead of us.”

Mary suppresses a groan and pulls the covers over her head.


	9. Frustration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mary deals with an invasion of a lesser kind.

It all goes to hell in a handbasket and Mary wants to know why Hill had to open her big fat mouth.

The morning goes fine, she supposes. She runs into Steve at the cafeteria again, and she slathers a piece of toast in apple jam while he shovels his way through about ten eggs and twice as much bacon. He offers her a piece of the crispy meat and she gratefully accepts, finishing the last of her breakfast before carting a pitcher of coffee into the lab where Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner were still working.

“Coffee, gentleman?” she announces, setting the steaming pot down next to the mugs from the day before. “I have tea being made as we speak,” she adds to Dr. Banner.

“Fury gremlin does good work,” Mr. Stark grunts. Mary rolls her eyes.

“Sugar and cream next to the pot. Ping me if you need more,” she calls over her shoulder as she makes her way to the bridge. Steve stays behind in the lab and she shoots him a small smile before joining Agent Hill.

“Good morning,” she greets as Hill turns to meet her.

“I see you took advice of the jumpsuit,” she responds, eyeing the slim-fitting suit that Mary had dressed in that morning instead of the skirt outfit. She nods.

“Easier to move in. I’m so glad we have the option.”

“The many perks of our status,” Hill jokes. “Long hours, a coffee IV drip, and the ability to wear pants.” They share a brief laugh and Mary feels herself opening up just a bit more to the other woman.

“I know I’m happy with these benefits,” Mary replies. “Here. I brought an extra cup.” She offers a steaming cup to Hill and she takes it with a smile. She leaves Hill to pilot the carrier and turns to where Agent Sitwell’s facial rec is still running.

“No updates,” Mihn tells her, back on the morning shift. “I made Sitwell go sleep. He should be back in an hour.” Mary nods.

“Thanks for both of those. Keep me posted.” She turns back to her station and starts to stream through the messages that popped up overnight. Many of them were negatives on the gamma radiation. Those, she sent up to Doctor Banner’s lab. A few others were some things from SHIELD HQ that she would deal with when this was over. 

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, noticing the director talking with Thor and Agent Coulson close to the windows of the bridge. He leaves them to speak to Hill before walking back towards the lab. Mary has half a mind to follow him, but he didn’t request her presence. Instead, she stands up to join Hill at her station.

“Is it supposed to be this quiet?” she asks.

“Careful or you’ll jinx it,” Hill retorts, checking over the viewing screens from Loki’s cell. They stand there in comfortable silence before Mary hears a wilding dinging coming from her station. Running back over, she slides into the chair and pulls herself closer to the desk before frantically logging in.

“They got it!” she yells at Hill, pulling up the report and forwarding it to the lab. Hill looks at her and Mary just nods, the look on her face grim but excited. They could get their people back and stop this madness.

Madness. An explosion rocks the side of the carrier and Mary is thrown from her chair. Stunned on the ground, she hears Director Fury shout through their communicators.

“Engine 3 is down!” Hill calls out. As Mary scrambles to her feet, she looks around for her tablet that clattered across the floor.

“Bass!” Hill shouts. “Can we get a run in? Talk to me!” What the operator says next is lost to Mary, but she hears Hill’s next orders. “Somebody’s got to get inside and patch that engine.”

“Stark!” Director Fury barks. Mary hears an echo of a response as she places the tablet inside the desk. She stabs at the screen until it pulls up the outer camera feeds. What she sees isn’t good.

“We’ve got hostiles!” she shouts, loud enough for the bridge to hear her as well as Fury through the comm. He bursts through the main doors to take his place at his stand. Mary waits nearby, uncertain, as he shouts orders.

“Bring the carrier inwards and head south,” Director Fury tells the helmsman. “Take us to water.”

“Why water?” the man asks. Mary wants to yell at him to just listen to his orders, but the director reprimands him quickly.

“Is the sun coming up!? Then put it on the left! Get us over water! One more turbine goes down and we drop.” He shouts the last word as the helmsman quickly follows his directions. He should’ve just listened in the first place. The Director turns to Mary.

“We need a full evac on the lower hangar bay.” Mary nods and starts to run out the door when a grenade rolls past her feet. It’s only thanks to her FBI training that Mary reacts.

“GRENADE!” Mary shouts, diving over the railing to her left. The impact of the blast sends her farther through the air then she planned to go and she slams into a desk, collapsing in a heap in the floor. She groans and attempts to push herself up off the floor, but there’s a pain in her tailbone and her left arm that leaves her on the ground. 

Mary hears gunshots and shouting echoing around her as she finally pulls herself to her hands and knees. There’s some voices ringing in her ear, something about Hulk, shuttle levels, and a distraction before the high-pitched whine stops and she is able to hear again. Leaning against the desk that somewhat cushioned her fall, Mary wipes her forehead with the back of her hand.

It comes away red. Mumbling under her breath, she tries to stand before a hand grabs her wrist to help her up.

“Here, Agent Morris, let me help.” She looks up to Agent Bass supporting half her weight.

“Thanks,” she replies, wincing as she stands to full height. She opens her mouth to say something else to him before a movement out of her peripheral vision catches her eye. “Fury! 11 o’clock!” she yells, drawing her weapon to shoot up at the threat leaning out of the air vent.

Barton.

The first arrow explodes around her and she tries not to flinch, still firing up at his hand. The second arrow flies at her head and Mary throws herself over Bass to keep them from being impaled. She looks up to where Barton was, but he disappeared, so she turns her attention back to the arrow.

It’s a freaking hacker arrow. Bass gets up and tries to pull the arrow out of the USB hub, but it’s locked in tight. 

“Sir, we’ve lost all power in Engine 1,” Sitwell says over the comms as Mary watches the screens in the entire bridge go dark.

“Agent Bass,” Mary says. He doesn’t look at her. It takes her a second to remember his first name. “Troy!” That snaps him out of whatever shock induced haze he was in and he looks at her. “Can you get control back?” She waves at the rows of black screens.

“I think so.” Mary all put pushes him into the nearest chair.

“I’ll cover you. Get us back online!” She draws her sidearm and stands with her rear touching the back of his chair, covering him with as much of her small frame as possible. Mary hears crackling come from the comm in her ear and she pulls it out, staring at the fried piece of electronics in disgust. Some good SHIELD tech was if it couldn’t survive being tossed to the ground.

It’s quiet, but that kind of quiet that makes Mary think something is worse is about to happen. It’s like the calm before the storm. The bridge’s general crew is either hunkered down under desks and walkways or covering the exits with their sidearms.

“I need someone to enable the director’s stand,” Bass says, breaking the adrenaline-filled calm that settled over Mary.

“You!” She points at the nearest worker under a desk. “Are you computer tech?” She waits long enough to get a nod. “Work with Bass and get us back online. Do what that man tells you until things calm down.”

Mary watches over the two men as they work until she sees Hill motioning wildly at her.

“Are we clear?” she shouts. Hill nods and motions her over again. “Hey, Bass, we’re in the clear. You guys are good.” Mary makes her way over to the other agent where she sees medical waiting nearby to tend to the deep gash running across Hill’s forehead. Steve and Mr. Stark choose that moment to join their party on the bridge.

“You’re hurt!” is the first thing out of Steve’s mouth as he sees her. A medic comes over at the captain’s motion, but Mary pushes him off.

“It’s just my face; those always bleed a lot. We’ve got people who were shot or injured in the explosion. Go take care of them. I’m not bleeding out.” The medic looks between the two of them, indecisiveness clear on his face. Mary pushes him gently away from her. “Shoo. I’m fine.”

He goes, leaving an annoyed Steve in his wake. “Let me do it at least,” he says, taking some gauze from a nearby pack. He steps up close, invading her personal space as he takes her chin in his hand. Even through his gloves, she can feel how hot his skin runs. She’s read his file; she knows it’s because of the serum, but it still feels about ten degrees hotter than safe.

Holding her head in place, he dabs carefully at the wound on her own head. The gauze comes away a muddy red, but Steve keeps cleaning until the wound is clear of debris. He pulls a glove off and holds it with his teeth as he squeezes a small amount of antibiotic sealant onto his finger. This he smooths over the gash before cleaning off his hand. “All better.”

Mary nods absently and leans her face against his hand for a moment before turning to Hill. “My comm went out after the explosion. What happened?”

“Hulk and Thor are in the wind.” Fury’s voice comes from up behind her. “We’ve got Barton back, but Loki escaped and took the scepter.” Fury crosses into her field of view and motions for them all to make their way to the conference table. “Agent Coulson is down.”

Mary staggers, and Steve has to put a hand on her elbow to keep her upright. “What?” she chokes out, looking to Hill for confirmation. She just bows her head briefly. Steve guides her to the table and she sits down in a chair, wincing as pressure is put on her tailbone again. His hand doesn’t leave her arm as he sits beside her. Mr. Stark sits down to their left with a distant look in his eyes.

“These were in Phil Coulson’s jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them,” the director says, tossing a stack of bloody, vintage trading cards on the table. Steve leans forward to pick them up. The look on his face matches the one Mary is sure she’s wearing -- devastation.

“We’re basically dead in the air up here. Communications are still down, we lost the location of the cube. Banner, Thor… I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming.” Mary leans back in her chair, closing her eyes against the reality of the situation around them.

“Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract,” Director Fury admits. “I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea -- Stark knows this.” Mary suddenly knows what he is talking about with clarity. “The Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. If they could work together when we needed them to fight the battles we never could.

“Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea.” Mr. Stark stands up and walks away. “Well… it’s an old fashioned notion.” Steve looks angry, and Mary understands. But to lose Coulson? He is -- _was,_ she thinks with a grimace -- one of those backbones of SHIELD.

The backbone to Agents Romanoff and Barton. She leans forward and places her head in her hands.

Shit.

“Sir, do you need me?” she asks Director Fury. He shakes his head, turning back to his command station. She looks at Hill.

“If I’m not back in an hour thirty, ping me.” Standing and wincing, she walks out of the bridge, aware of Steve hot on her heels. She doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t try to break their silence as the off-rhythm click of her heels on the floor sets their pace. She’s limping, painfully, and her rear hurts like a mother.

When she finally reaches the door to the small room she shares with Hill, she palms open the door and essentially collapses on her cot.

“Are you coming in?” she asks Steve, eyeballing him from her prone position. She knows it’s not professional or classy or anything close to impressing him, but she was just blasted halfway across the bridge by a grenade and had a really crappy morning. She’s done with caring.

Steve almost cautiously enters the room and the door shuts behind him. Mary sighs at the darkened room and groans, closing her eyes.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asks. She cracks open an eye to look at him and sees him looking on in concern.

“Thanks to you playing nurse,” she teases, sitting up carefully. “You’re allowed to sit down, y’know.” Steve looks lost still, so she pats the bed next to her. He joins her and she can practically feel the apprehension rolling off of him in waves. “Are you worried that I’m still hurt?”

“You could have died!” he finally chokes out, pointedly not looking in her direction. “I-I just found you and then I could have lost you…”

Mary scoots closer to him in alarm and tucks her hand under his elbow, leaning against his shoulder. “It’s a hazard of the job, Steve,” she says. “You know that. But I’m tougher than I look. Also a hazard of the job.” He cracks a grin at that and she smiles. Mission accomplished.

“Agent Romanoff trained me, y’know,” she says, her other hand reaching around to rest on top of his. “She wouldn’t take very kindly to me dying, either.”

“That does make me feel better,” he admits, turning his hand over to lace their fingers together. It’s intimate and almost seems like they’re moving too fast, but it feels just as right as anything else. There’s a gentle pull at her hip, where his words are, like there’s a tether connecting their bodies together. They lapse into silence, Mary’s thumb traces circles on his arm while he stares at their interlocked hands.

“Where are my words?” he quietly asks, tilting his head to look at her. She removes her arm from his elbow and pats the hip closest to him.

“And mine?” He taps his upper bicep on the arm closest to her.

“You’ll have to show me sometime,” he smirks, unlacing their hands. He turns, places a hand under her chin, and plants a delicate kiss on her cheek. “I need to go speak to Tony.”

And the bastard leaves Mary sitting there, body aching with pain and the promise of something later. She flops back onto her cot and looks at the clock. Just enough time to take a power nap and change into a less-tattered uniform.

She’ll have words for him later.


	10. Transitioning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary tackles the Chitauri invasion...and what follows.

Mary wakes up to a clanging alarm sounding. She blindly reaches for her phone, knocking it onto the ground with a clatter. Cursing, she follows its trail and ends up with the device in hand, a ping from Hill causing the ungodly noise.

“I gave you an extra 10. Now get back up here,” reads the screen. Mary groans and sits up, finding herself in her darkened room on a narrow cot. What she wouldn’t give for her bed. She hastily changes into a fresh uniform and rebraids her hair before heading to the bridge.

Once there, Hill greets her with a water bottle and two pills. “Painkiller. You’ll need it,” she explains. Mary just nods and pops the pills, following it with a healthy swig of water.

“Thanks. Did I miss anything important?” Hill shakes her head.

“Comms are almost back up, and thanks to Stark and Rogers we got all the engines working again. We should be good to go until this wraps up and we can land for full maintenance.”

“Please tell me that report does not fall under my purview.” Mary groans just thinking about how much paperwork that would cause.

“We have a repairs department for a reason.” She thanks the powers-that-be that there isn’t more to deal with. Director Fury walks up to join them both.

“Glad to see that beauty rest did you some good, Agent,” he deadpans. Mary shoots him a look.

“What’s our next move, sir?” she asks.

“We wait.” Mary’s about to ask what they’re waiting for when a ping draws her attention to her phone.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark is requesting my presence in the lab. Please excuse me,” she says, nodding at her superiors before walking to the lab as quickly as she can.

“Did you need more coffee, Mr. Stark?” she asks as the door opens, trailing off uncertainly when she sees Mr. Stark, Agent Romanoff, Agent Barton, and Steve staring at her expectantly. They were all suited up.

“We need a jet,” Steve says. Mary shakes away her confusion and turns to the agents.

“There’s a quinjet in Hangar B,” she says. “You didn’t hear it from me. I’ll key in your authorization codes now.” She walks over to the closest computer screen and pulls up her login ID, navigating to the hangar’s log and adding the codes of the four in the room plus Banner and Thor to the jet’s logs. It would keep the jet from freaking out them when they boarded, but it wouldn’t stop the hangar alarms from going off when they launched simply because she couldn’t give them that much.

“You go on; I’ll catch up in a moment,” she hears Steve saying. After the footsteps of the other have receded, she turns around to face him expectantly.

“You left me in a bit of a pickle earlier,” she says dryly, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“I’m not the man history made me out to be, Mary,” he responds, pulling his mask down so she can see his whole face. He speaks again as he inches towards her, practically looming as he invades her personal space. “I’m just a boy from Brooklyn, and we’re not known for being gentlemen.”

He is right in her bubble and Mary swears he’s about to jam one of those strong legs in between her thighs and drive her insane right there in the lab. He’s just oozing sexual tension in a way that makes her toes curl, and while she’s normally not one for moving this fast, she’d be an idiot if she didn’t shack up with him. After all, they’re _soulmates_. Destined to be together. What’s the point in waiting for societal norms? He doesn’t touch her, though her body is already putty in his hands. Instead, those sweet blue eyes of his look like they’re undressing her and she can’t help but shiver under his gaze.

“I’m not much for waiting anymore,” Steve admits, leaning back just enough that Mary can breathe again. “So when we get back, we’re going on a date. You start planning your dress now, ‘cause it better be something I can take off without destroying it.” He leans down to kiss the cheek he didn’t kiss back in her room before pulling his mask back on.

“Steve!” Mary calls out as he begins to leave. There is so much she wants to say. Like how can he leave her like this? How can he make this heat pool in her belly when she has a job to do? His eyes meet hers and she tries to convey what she doesn’t have words for. “Be careful,” she says instead. She’s leaning against one of the lab counters, cheeks flushed and heart beating erratically, but he’s looking at her like she’s the only thing in the world worth it. He nods.

“I like red,” he throws over his shoulder as he leaves the lab. Mary sinks down to the floor, knowing her legs can’t hold her up at the moment. _What the hell,_ she thinks, pulling on history lessons from elementary school up to college. Captain America was supposed to be a tame, gentle, pure type of man who only ever loved one woman and was waiting to marry her after the war.

Not...that. Not promising sex on their first date. Which, well, Mary was pretty sure she’d be down for that by the time their dinner was over, but still. Was he always like this? It’s a question she can’t ask anyone since everyone he grew up with is dead (sobering thought), but you’d think something like this would actually have made the history books.

In a way, though, she was glad it didn’t. It was something he’d save for her, something only she would see, which drove her even crazier than that downright dirty gaze he had traced her body with. Besides that, it could be an image he wanted to maintain. If Mr. Stark got word of Steve talking like that? She didn’t even want to think about the consequences.

Mary makes her way back to the bridge to see a quinjet take off from under their belly and Hill turn to Fury in confusion.

“Looks like they found their push,” he was saying as she walked up.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Mary says, announcing her arrival back on the bridge. Both Hill and the Director roll their eyes at her.

“Thanks to you and Bass we got comms back up sooner than we expected. I want eyes on the island. You tell me exactly what’s going on.” Mary nods at Director Fury, sitting down at the conference table and tapping into the SHIELD and public camera feeds. The table’s screens light up with various live scenes from around Manhattan Island. 

“These people have no idea what’s about to happen,” Mary breathes, wishing there was some magical button she could press to evacuate the island in a flash. A clattering snaps her out of staring at the screens and she looks up to another comm unit on the table in front of her. She slides it into her ear and says a small test in it.

“Copy.” To her surprise, Steve and the rest of the team responds. “We need eyes in the sky, Mary,” Steve says. “Help us out, alright?”

“Understood. I’ll let you know if anything weird pops up.”

And she does. Mary doesn’t see Selvig on the roof, but once the portal opens up and the fighting starts, she and a few other agents Hill gathered crowd around the conference table and their own tablets, scanning the public feeds and calling out patterns and some of the stray Chitauri. Mary tries to not let the fact that there are aliens invading the planet get to her, instead treating it like a strange training program the FBI concocted.

A camera that SHIELD converted to heat-signature scans over a bank and Mary nearly drops out of her chair. “Captain, they’ve got civilians in a bank at 42nd past Madison,” she calls out over the comm line before turning to the agent next to her. “Get police and National Guard at the exits. They either provide backup or get people to safety.” She barely pays attention to the chatter around her as the other agents talk to Iron Man, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow.

Mary pulls up the bank’s internal cameras on her tablet and starts talking to Steve in a low stream.

“The civs are downstairs but cornered. Three Chitauri upstairs. It’s a circular balcony that overlooks a lobby.” She pauses, listening to his heavy breathing while trying to enhance the image on her screen. “Oh sh-- Steve, there’s a bomb!” she yells, staring at the external and internal cameras.

Steve launches himself through a window and chucks his shield at the alien with the bomb. The other two move to shoot him, but he dives under a desk and then kicks it in their direction to distract them. He follows the desk and puts one attacker in a headlock while the other he sends over the railing of the balcony. Mary hopes the thing is either unconscious or dead if he’s gonna be sending it into a crowd of innocents. The third alien, the one who started the bomb, lunges for Steve and rips off his helmet.

“Everyone! Clear out!” Mary hears him yell and sees him wave frantically at the people gathered down below. The Chitauri left dives for the bomb, but Steve braces himself behind his shield and is launched out of the window he entered through.

Mary freezes, holding her breath, as the camera feeds try to track his landing. He crashes into a car, the roof collapsing under the force. She remembers to breathe again when a pained whine filters through the comm.

“Go get back with reinforcements, Captain,” Mary says quietly, willing him to understand the meaning behind her words. She sees him salute at the camera before stumbling off of the car in search of Thor.

Mary goes back to her pattern calling only to see her director having words with shadowy figures on his screens. Hill looks on, also not impressed. The director dismisses the Council with a less-than-impressed glare. She catches Hill’s eyes, but the other agent shakes her head. Mary stays where she is until a flashing alarm on her tablet catches her eye.

“Sir, we have a bird in motion!” Hill calls, the announcement causing all of the agents to pause and stare. “Anyone on the deck, we have a rogue bird!” Hill’s patched through the ship’s entire intercom system now. “Shut it down! Repeat, take off is not authorized!” Director Fury takes off in the direction of deck access while Mary broadcasts to the team on the ground.

“Guys, we’ve got an unauthorized jet heading towards the island,” she warns. “I’ll let you know what it is--”

“Stark!” Director Fury’s voice crackles through her comm. “You hearing me? We have a nuke heading right for the city.”

“How long?” Mary swears he sounds almost bored.

“Three minutes, at best. Stay low and wipe out the missile.”

Mary patches into Iron Man’s line and starts directing him to clear airspace, away from the Chitauri so he has access to the open sky. She refuses to think about a nuclear missile heading to New York. It’s not a thing that could happen. They refuse to let it happen; negate the missile’s existence.

“Thanks, Morris,” she hears Stark say over the line before he disappears into the portal. _He used my name…_ she thinks, standing at her screens and watching with trepidation. Everyone around her is cheering, celebrating that it didn’t hit the island but Mary doesn’t see Iron Man come back from the portal. Someone turns to hug her but she stops them, anxiously scanning the skies.

“Close the portal,” Steve says over the comm and Mary doesn’t want to think about it. She closes her eyes when a hurried gasp makes her snap them open. A small red blob is falling through the sky. She watches Hulk’s rescue and only sits down when all six of them are safely on the ground. She looks up to see Director Fury’s eyes on her.

She nods. They did it.

\---

Mary doesn’t see Steve for another week, busy as she is with the massive amounts of paperwork the incident generated and busy as he is with getting Loki sorted out. She returns to her apartment in SHIELD headquarters, dropping her bag on the sofa and walking to the bedroom to collapse onto her bed. She groans. Hand cramps are a real, viable thing that you can apparently suffer from when your paperwork was nothing but typing, she determines, massaging her wrist carefully.

A flash of red catches her eye and she stares wistfully at the dress hanging in her closet that she bought the moment they landed, sure that Steve wouldn’t renege on his promise of a date. He’s still working on clean-up, she knows. All of them are.

A loud ringing makes her run to the sofa and pull her phone out of her bag.

“Agent Morris,” she says.

“You’re being reassigned. Report to Stark Tower. We need someone overseeing the removal of those whale carcasses.” Director Fury cuts straight to the point as he always does. 

“Transport?”

“Bus down front. Be there in 20.” He doesn’t even wait for an affirmative before ending the call. Mary sighs and scrubs a hand down her face before grabbing the go-bag from under her bed. She adds in her tablet and chargers for both phone and tablet. As a last minute addition, she bags up the dress in a dress carrier and locks up her apartment.

She dials the SHIELD line Mr. Stark had installed in the Tower to let him know she was coming.

“What got fucked up now?” is his greeting. She suppresses a sigh.

“Mr. Stark, this is Agent Morris. I’ll be assisting you with the cleanup efforts for the foreseeable future.”

“I don’t have a spare room ready!” he exclaims. “I guess you’ll just have to share with Capsicle.”

“Mr. Stark,” Mary says, exasperation lacing her voice. “Do I need to remind you I also have Ms. Pott’s number? I will be there in about thirty minutes. I would appreciate a place for my things.”

She hangs up on him (when did she ever get brave enough to do that?) and meets the National Guard ATV to take her the Tower. The short trip to what remains of the Tower is...sobering. Rubble everywhere, a mixture of Army, National Guard, first responders, and civilians all working together to clean up the streets of New York. The majority of the Chitauri corpses had been removed to SHIELD labs for testing and documenting purposes. Mary is sure that Mr. Stark had stolen a few for himself, too.

But the giant carcasses of the whales that carried in reinforcements? She shudders. They were huge, easily three blocks long and as tall as a five story building. Mary would need to organize helicopters to carry them out in sections. Having Thor here would have made things a whole lot easier, but he went off world to take Loki back to Asgard for his crimes.

“We’re here,” the driver tells her.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” she replies. “Stay safe out there.” She hoists her bags onto her shoulder and walks up the steps to the Tower, stepping through the open doorway into a madhouse.

Temporary signs were posted everywhere, showing what rescue group had what section of the lower floors. The restaurants in the food court had a constant line, though Mr. Stark seemed to be supplying them enough food that they never ran out. She noticed groups like the Red Cross, FEMA, and few other national operations set up on the first floor, with signs for organizations she didn’t recognize dominating the names of the second and third.

Mary makes her way to the welcome desk and flashes her badge. “Agent Morris here to liaison,” she announces. The secretary wordlessly hands her another badge and directs her to the elevators.

“You’ll be taking the middle, miss,” another secretary says, glaring at her companion. Mary thanks both ladies and heads to the elevator banks, flashing her badge at the scanner next to the middle elevator. The doors open with a silent woosh and she steps inside. 

“Sir will meet you in the common floor that he works from periodically now, Agent Morris,” a smooth British voice intones from the ceiling. Mary starts and looks up, but the voice doesn’t say anything else. When the elevator doors open again, she’s staring at the wide open sky of New York. Stepping out of the elevator, Mary readjusts her bags before walking further into the space.

Plastic tarps taped up to busted-out windows flutter in the wind rushing around the tower. It would have scattered any renovation plans, but instead the blueprints she expects to see are projected into mid-air into a sort of hologram. There’s a bar across the way stocked with alcohol still, which makes Mary shake her head at Mr. Stark’s character.

“Gremlin! You’re here!” Mary turns around to see Iron Man fly through one of the empty window panes and land in the middle of the floor. “Have you already met JARVIS?”

“I don’t...think so?”

“We have already met, Sir,” the same British voice says. Mary looks around in surprise.

“JARVIS has ties to every room in the building. If you have any questions you can just ask him. Now why did Nick send you here?”

It takes Mary a moment to realize the “Nick” he’s referring to is, in fact, her boss.

“I’m to oversee the removal of the whale carcasses, as well as help make sure the Avengers are getting good PR in light of this disaster.”

“We don’t need good PR; we have me!” 

Mary rolls her eyes. “Mr. Stark, that is exactly why Director Fury reassigned me. The Avengers still fall under SHIELD purview, so you all are my responsibility until I am reassigned again.”

“Tony, you didn’t tell me we were going to have a guest!”

Mary turns around to see a woman with light red hair enter the floor. Even in the midst of all the construction, Pepper Potts continues to look like the CEO Stark Industries needed.

“Ms. Potts, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Mary says, turning to give the woman a handshake. Her grip is strong. “My name is Agent Morris; I’m here under Director Fury’s orders to help with the cleanup and Avengers PR.”

“Oh thank goodness. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to assign some of my people to that. Please just call me Pepper.” Her smile is warm and welcoming.

“Then you can call me Mary.” She smiles.

“JARVIS, do we have a room set up for our new guest?”

“Sir has set aside a room on Captain Roger’s floor.”

“What about my floor? You didn’t tell me you were giving me an entire floor. I don’t need or want an entire floor!”

Mary has to steel herself to turn and face the new voice she knew all too well. 

“You have a special visitor, Cap!”

Mary turns around just in time to note the look of surprise on Steve’s face. She smiles hesitantly at him.

“Mary?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to make a few changes to the story and tags because some things aren't sitting well with me. When that's done I'll either post a summary or let you guys reread the chapters. What's your preference?
> 
> You can find me on lacefacewrites.tumblr.com


	11. All A Misunderstanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mary and Steve have a hard time talking.

“Good evening, Steve,” she greets him, smiling warmly. She swears her heart skips a beat at the way he grins back at her. He steps closer and takes her bags from her shoulder, easily hefting the weight.

“Where is she staying, Tony?” he asks.

“Your floor.” Even Mary can sense how giddy Mr. Stark is under the mask.

“It’s two floors down,” Pepper supplies helpfully. “Do you need anything else, Mary?”

She shakes her head. “I’ll need a place to work tomorrow, but that can wait until the morning.”

“Great! I’ll meet you in the lobby after breakfast. Have a good night!” Pepper not so subtly ushers Mr. Stark into an elevator and waves goodnight to both Mary and Steve before the doors shut.

Mary turns to Steve and shifts her weight, feeling awkward both without her bags and because she was alone with him.

“C’mon. I haven’t seen what Tony’s done, and we need to get you settled anyways.” He reaches out to guide her to the elevators and Mary blindly follows, feeling extremely out of her element. They keep a silence that feels awkward to Mary, though Steve’s hand on her lower back warms her in a way her jacket can’t. 

The elevator doors open to a small lobby with a single door. A small entry table sits against the left wall with a large painting hanging opposite it. A plaque next to the door reads “ROGERS” in bold, block letters. There’s a handprint scanner on the other side. Steve removes his hand from her back to palm the screen.

“Welcome, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS says.

“Thanks, JARVIS. Can I register someone else to the scanner?”

“I assume we would like to add Miss Morris to the list?”

“What? Steve!” Mary exclaims, looking at him in shock. “You want to basically give me a key to your apartment?”

“Mary, we’re probably working different hours. Besides,” Steve paused to fix her with a look she had come to recognize as his serious look. “I want you to have a key.”

“Just place your palm on the scanner, Miss Morris,” JARVIS gently prompts.

Obviously outweighed, Mary steps forward and places her left palm on the scanner. JARVIS confirms it a moment later, and the door slides open silently.

“Sir wishes to inform your that the living area, bathrooms, and two bedrooms are the only functional areas at the moment. The kitchen and remainder of the rooms are offline. However, the common floor three levels below has working kitchens, movie theater, and research room should you require their services. I am online to use at your convenience; should you wish to turn me off, just engage privacy mode. It can be turned off at the terminal next to the television.”

“Thank you, JARVIS,” Steve says. “Do you record inside my floor as well?”

“Unless privacy mode is engaged, yes. To access those recordings needs the approval of all members registered to the door scanner. Both you and Miss Morris would need to give me verbal approval and a palm scan for those recordings to be accessible.”

“Thanks again. That’s it for now.”

“Captain Rogers, Miss Morris, welcome to Avengers Tower.” JARVIS’ voice fades out and leaves Steve and Mary to explore the giant apartment.

“I’m going to need a map to get around my own apartment,” Steve mutters as Mary just looks around in wonder. This was incredible compared to her own meager SHIELD-supplied apartment. They both walk down the back hallway, opening doors as they go. The first three reveal bedrooms in various states of completion. The next door is a bathroom, and the two at the back show finished bedrooms. 

The smaller of the two is decorated in muted earth tones. The walls are a smooth beige with chocolate brown accents. The furniture (a queen bed, end tables, desk, vanity, and set of drawers) are stained a dark brown as well. The hardwood floor is accented with a round, fluffy green and gold rug that matches the duvet spread out on the bed. One wall is floor-to ceiling windows, but a panel of curtains sits to one side. There is a walk-in closet as well, painted in the same beige and brown colors.

Steve sets her bags down on the bed and looks at the dress hanger curiously.

“I didn’t mean to presume, but you do owe me a date,” Mary says. Steve grins and hangs it up in the closet.

“Did you buy red?”

“Why don’t you wait and see?” she retorts, turning to her bags to unpack her electronics and plug them in. Steve grabs her arm instead and pulls her out the door.

“We’re not done!” he admonishes. The door at the end of the hallway reveals a master bedroom, also complete with floor to ceiling windows. The room is much more simple than the other finished room. The walls are a deep blue and all of the furniture is white. The king sized-bed has a deep maroon duvet with matching accent pillows. Each end table has a small silver lamp, and the desk and set of drawers are cleared. The walls are blank.

Two doors in the back of the room lead to another walk-in closet and the master bathroom, complete with double sinks, a huge shower, and a two-person Jacuzzi. Mary is instantly jealous (the other bathroom only contained a relatively small shower stall and tub.

“Does Tony really think my favorite colors are red, white, and blue?” Steve asks as he looks around at the color scheme.

“I’d say the bed is more maroon than red,” Mary remarks. Steve scowls at her. She just laughs. “He did try. You have to give him that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve acquiesces. “I’m just not sure…”

“It’s just paint and fabric. Pretty easy to make it how you like it.”

“I guess I keep forgetting stuff like that is such a simple fix nowadays.”

“It’s a lot to get used to, I know.” Mary pats his arm in sympathy. “You’ll get there. I’m gonna go unpack and turn in early, if you don’t mind. It was a long day today.” Steve follows her out of the master bedroom and to the door of “her” room.

“Have a good night, Mary,” he says and leans in to kiss her cheek.

“You too,” she squeaks out, disappearing behind her door with a sigh. Her cheeks are flushed and she sinks onto the bed with a sigh. She unpacks her clothes and pulls out the bag of toiletries, slipping into the hallway to find the guest bathroom. Steve’s door is closed, she notes with a sigh of relief.

Once in the bathroom, Mary takes care of her business and removes her contacts. She puts the small travel bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the shower and makes a neat stack of her other items: hair brush, contacts case and solution, glasses case, toothbrush, and toothpaste. Lastly, she brushes her teeth and cleans up after herself before heading back to her room.

Her gun, once the rounds were checked and the safety engaged, goes on the side table farthest away from the door. She carefully stacks her under things in the drawers and hangs the rest of her uniforms up in the closet, setting her bags on the floor. She doesn’t have nearly enough things to fill the space, but it’s enough. She doesn’t expect to stay here permanently.

Her tablet docking station finds a home on the desk, and her phone on the side table her gun doesn’t occupy. Mary changes into a pair of sweatpants and sports bra and collapses into the bed, tossing the decorative pillows off to the side.

She’s startled awake a few hours later by a scream. Mary scrambles out of bed, shoves her glasses on her face, and grabs her gun. She eases out into the hallway and sees that the lights are still off, but a noise from Steve’s room draws her closer.

“Steve?” she calls out quietly, hoping for a response. There isn’t one. She gently opens the door with her left hand, ready to fire at an intruder with her right. Instead she sees Steve tossing in the bed, fists twisted in the sheets in some kind of nightmare. She engages the safety on her gun and sets it down on the side table before climbing onto the bed next to him. “Steve, wake up,” she urges him.

It takes a few moments and hand on his shoulder before his eyes snap open. His hand reaches out for hers and she grabs it tightly.

“I’m here, I’m here,” she soothes. He sits up and practically crawls into her lap, tucking his face into the hollow of her neck. She never realized how much of a touch-starved person Steve was, but it hits her now as she rubs circles into the small of his back. He seems to lean into her touch and they sit there for a few moments until Steve shifts enough so he can talk.

“Are you sure this is something you want to deal with?” His breath is warm against her skin as he speaks.

“What on earth do you mean?” Mary asks.

Steve takes an arm from where is snaked around her torso (Mary didn’t even notice) to make a motion that took in all of his form. “Me. The nightmares--” his voice breaks over the word, “the duties, the time I can’t spend with you…” He trails off and Mary shushes him.

“Your words are on my skin for a reason, Steve,” she tells him.

“Can I see them?” Mary freezes under him for a moment before nodding, gently moving him from her chest. She rolls onto her side, head down by the footboard of the bed before pulling the waistband of her sweats down low enough to reveal the neat cursive of his words. They start on her hip bone and swirl lazily down the rest of her hip, looking similar to the path a snake would make it its crawl.

Steve reaches out a hand to trace the letter and Mary practically moans when his finger touches the black words. He looks at her in concern but she just shakes her head, letting her hair fall down to cover her face in an attempt to hide the blush that covers her cheeks. She feels heat rush through her body and pool low in her belly, a feeling that had been absent for so long that she forgot what it feels like. 

“Do you want me?” Steve asks, and when Mary looks up at him, she doesn’t know what he’s asking. Does she want to get to know him? Be his lover, his soulmate, potentially his wife? Just the desire running through her body makes her want to scream yes and crawl into his arms. He makes her feel things, amazing things, and he hasn’t even kissed her yet. Mary wants to nod, wants to say something, but her hair brushes over her shoulder and she remembers the scar -- her scar.

How can she have these things with Steve if there’s another man out there with her mark? How can she lead him on like this, try, to hide things, when they will have a literal human being between them? Mary knows he doesn’t have another soulmate; one was never mentioned in any of the reports she read. There’s no way any of this ends well.

So in response, she shakes her head. “I-I can’t,” she whispers, shifting from her position on the bed to her knees so she can back off the bed. “It’s not you, it’s me, Steve.” She wants to clarify that before he gets hurt again, before she breaks his heart into a million tiny pieces. He’s had enough hurt in his life, losing his best friend then waking up seventy years in the future with people he doesn’t know or understand. She can’t be the cause of more pain, but what choice does she have?

“Mary, what’s wrong?” The concern is clear in voice and on his face. Steve reaches out for her but Mary slides off the bed, pushing her glasses back up her nose as she stares down at the floor. She can’t even bring herself to look him in the eyes with how ashamed she is of those grey words keeping her from giving Steve the happiness he deserves.

“I can’t,” she repeats. “I’m sorry.” Mary runs out of the room, locking the door behind her once she reaches her own. She locks the door behind her and goes into the closet, pulling the red dress out of its bag and hanging it up in the center of the empty rack. She looks up at it and bursts into tears.

Mary falls asleep in the corner of her closet, staring at the red dress.

\---

 _What the fuck just happened?_ Steve thinks, staring at the spot on the bed Mary had vacated moments before. He was a bit embarrassed at his nightmare, yes, especially that Mary had to see that and came in to comfort him, but he thought that they were getting somewhere. She had even let him touch his words on her skin, and based on the noise that escaped her lips...she wanted more.

But then she ran away from him.

Steve had latched onto that look she gave him in the carrier before he left with the rest of the team. She looked at him like he was the world -- like if he didn’t come back, her whole world would stop spinning, too. And her voice in the comms, like his own guardian angel. It brought Steve back to Peggy on the other end of that radio, flying the plane into the Arctic, keeping him company through his last hours.

Mary was nothing like Peggy, nothing like the woman he thought he would end up with because he couldn’t have Bucky, but having her watching over him _helped_ like he didn’t expect it to.

But then she ran away from him. And he wants to know why.

“JARVIS, where did she go?” Steve asks wearily.

“Miss Morris is currently in her closet,” JARVIS answers. 

_Is she packing?_ Steve things, immediately on edge. He stands to meet her, but his eyes fall on the handgun on his side table. She wouldn’t leave without that. So maybe it’s selfish of him, but he leaves it on the table as he walks to her room. The door is locked, but JARVIS opens it for him. Maybe that’s wrong of both of them, but maybe Tony actually did give JARVIS feelings.

The lights are still off, a clock on the desk blinking the time at him: 3:13 a.m. Steve doesn’t see her in the bed, which looks like it was vacated in a hurry -- probably when his nightmare woke her up. He sees the closet door open and walks towards it cautiously. In the low light, he makes out a small form curled up on the floor in the corner.

Mary’s facing away from him, curled up on the floor and breathing in and out in a slow, sleepy pattern. Her hair has fallen forward, exposing her shoulders to him. A grey set of words make harsh, straight lines on her shoulder blade. Steve recognizes the writing instantly. 

He sinks to his knees before her, eyes traveling over her small, still form in wonder. He gathers her in his arms and she stirs, glasses askew on her face.

“Steve?” she asks, and then when she fully wakes up and realizes where she is, she struggles to get out of his arms.

“Mary, stop it,” he admonishes, but she doesn’t stop wiggling. “Mary!” His voice is harsh, his Captain’s voice, he knows, but he needed her to listen. “I want to show you something,” he says quietly. She stills. “Don’t run away?” After he sees a small nod, he sets Mary down against the wall again and peels off his shirt.

Mary sits there and stares at his torso. He waits, silently, letting her see the scrawl also cutting harsh lines across his stomach, made black nearly eighty years ago.

“I don’t understand,” she says, never taking her eyes off of the soulmark.

“I met him in an alley. I was getting my ass handed to me and using a trash can lid as a shield before a brunette in an Army uniform came to my rescue.”

Mary turns away from him, pulling the hair from her shoulder. “I have him, too,” she whispers. Steve moves closer to her, pulling her into his lap again so they’re sitting back to back.

“I know,” he whispers into the hollow of her neck. “And we’ll find him together.” She shivers back into his touch, grabbing onto his forearms with need. 

“I thought you only had me,” Mary says after a few moments. “I thought that my shoulder was someone who would come between us.”

“He won’t,” Steve says. “He’ll complete us. I haven’t had a chance to look for him yet, but he’s alive. I don’t know how or why, but he’s out there. Our marks prove that.” He would get his Bucky back. Their Bucky back.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” Her voice is quiet, like it pains her to ask that of him, but Steve just tightens his grip on her.

“As long as we don’t have to stay on the floor,” he teases. She giggles against him and makes to get up, but Steve just shifts her in his arms and stands up with the two of them. Mary lets out a shriek and Steve just laughs, carrying her through the doors and into his room. He deposits her gently on the side of the bed closest to her gun. “My bed is bigger,” he explains shamelessly.

Mary shrugs. “When do you have to be up in the morning?”

“I don’t really have a schedule. Do you need my help tomorrow?”

“Sure. I have to meet up with some SHIELD agents around 7, I think. Director Fury didn’t really give me a set time but I know who I need to contact.” Steve settles into bed next to her.

“We’ve got time for about three more hours, then,” he says, rolling over to smile at her. “C’mere. I’ll wake you up at 6:30.” Mary cautiously scoots closer to him until Steve wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her closer. “Sleep well, Mary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE BIG REVEAL <3 I hope you all liked the chapter.
> 
> I updated/changed some tags and changed a key part of the story. Bucky’s soulmark on Mary’s body went from “You mean we’re stuck with you?” to “Who the fuck are you?” That's all of it though.
> 
> You can find me at [lacefacewrites.tumblr.com](http://lacefacewrites.tumblr.com/). Enjoy!


	12. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary joins a team at Stark Tower to help rebuild Manhattan.

When Mary had asked Steve whether he wanted to help on the streets or stay with her inside the Tower, he had easily answered “with you” because he felt they both needed the reassurance that they were a set. What he didn’t realize is that being stuck in the Tower meant they were essentially running comms all day, keeping in contact with the field units that had been mobilized all over the island, collecting alien remains or digging people out of the rubble.

It felt like everyone and their dog had joined them in Manhattan, too, wanting to either help or get their hands on some otherworldly tech. Mary gave Steve the tech comm that morning, her business face solid even though her eyes twinkled at him softly.

“You’ve got a solid voice and people listen to you,” she says, handing him an earpiece and a tablet. “Coordinate with the retrieval teams. If they find something, mark it on your map so that our contamination unit can pick it up. If you need something, you can ping my tablet from yours so I can meet you. I’ll be all over the Tower’s main floor.” She gives him a pat on the shoulder and walks away, leaving him to turn on the headset and stick it in his ear.

“Fischer here.”

“Noble here.”

The two voices crackle in his ear and Steve shakes his head, trying to separate the ear voices from the mumble of voices in the Tower around him.

“Captain here,” he finally says. “I’ll be your point on this.” He waits for the normal scramble of things like “it’s an honor, sir”, but instead the two agents give their affirmative and ping his tablet so that he could follow their movements through the city.

“As we go we’ll be mapping out routes around the wreckage,” Noble says, his little dot moving in the opposite direction of Fischer’s. “We’ve got two teams in the field who are getting replacement tabs.”

“That’s where we’re heading,” Fischer adds. “Once we rendezvous with them, the four of us will be heading out to do the real work.”

“Copy that,” Steve says, his tablet lighting up with info from Mary.

“Captain, search and rescue found tech,” she says in his ear. “If you can call contamination I’d appreciate it. If you see other pings from me like this, go ahead and call them. You can do so from the tab and the call will sound in your headpiece.”

Just like that, she’s gone. Steve looks up to try and spot her running around, but all he sees is a mix of medical personnel, suits, and the understated SHIELD uniforms bustling around him. He buries himself in the tablet, contacting the contamination unit and alerting them of the tech. They give him a contact where he can send the coordinates of every alert so he doesn’t have to call for every single discovery, for which he’s grateful.

The hours of the morning bleed together once he meets the other two team leads: Porter and Church. If the teams begin to overlap, he guides them away from each other. Steve mills around the Tower while he works, eventually making slow laps of the entire first floor. It brings him within earshot of many interesting conversations: SHIELD agents, government officials, military and police forces… The people all seem to steer clear of him, apparently recognizable enough now even without his suit on. But when he hunches over, leaning against a nearby column or wall, he almost blends in with the other people around him.

Steve uses this, just keeping an ear out for things as he ambles around the floors. He hears a few things that might concern him normally -- raised voices, event some shouts here and there, but the scouting team keeps him busy enough with the sheer amount of Chitauri technology that rained down on Manhattan.

Shit. It takes his breath away, just thinking about the events that transpired almost seven days prior. How they had managed it, he didn’t know. Every moment of the Battle for Manhattan, as the media dubbed it, had played out so quickly that all he could do was react. React to Stark being right about Fury hiding things, react to aliens pouring out of the sky, react to the onslaught of enemies using the same kind of weapons as Hydra.

It took all Steve had to not disappear in the memories of things that had happened just months ago for him rather than the sixty-some odd years that had passed since he dove the plane into the Arctic. Every noise of the Chitauri’s guns threatened to pull him back to the 1940s, but he fought with that soldier’s discipline Philip so desperately wanted him to have until the job was done.

And they were right. The people he fought with were not soldiers, they were spies and civilians and people with too much money on their hands. And still, they had risen to the challenge and come together in a way that he hadn’t expected. Steve is about read to call them friends.

It takes him a solid minute of being poked before he comes out of his thoughts, Mary’s finger stabbing at his bicep repeatedly.

“Lunch break. C’mon,” she says, pulling at his sleeve and taking the tablet from his hands.

“Take a lunch, team,” he hears in an echo, her voice repeating itself through the comms and his actual ear. He vaguely notices the thanks from the field teams before Mary holds out her hand for the little earpiece. She has her own out already, he sees, and shoves them both into a pocket on her skirt.

“You’re wearing the skirt?” he asks, remembering the jumpsuit she and Hill had worn. It only caught his eye because the other women on deck were in the skirts themselves. It was clear the pants were a subtle power play. Peggy had done the same, wearing pants in the field because she was “capable, damnit!”

The haunted memory of her crisp accent reverberates in his head.

“I’m just a liaison, Captain,” she replies, humor flooding her tone. “Mr. Stark has arranged a meal upstairs. I’ll lead you there.”

The act is for the officials staring, finally realizing the nondescript man with a tablet is actually the famed Captain America. He follows Mary quickly, walking with the stride and demeanor many people interpreted as the Captain. She is also acting, he notes, her walk smaller and more dainty, almost. She makes a motion for him to enter the elevator first, but he steps aside for her.

Once the doors seal shut, she smirks at him. “Chivalry isn’t dead after all, I suppose.”

“What was that?” he asks, waving at the elevator doors.

“I’m not a field agent here. I’m one of the public faces of SHIELD and the Avengers here.” Mary’s face darkens for a moment. “Why Fury thought I’d be good at this I have no idea; I wasn’t a communications major. But he put me here, so here I will be.”

“Mr. Stark and Agent Romanoff will be joining you,” JARVIS says from above. Steve mutters a thanks and exits, stopping short at the onslaught of Tony Stark.

“You still have an advanced metabolism, right Cap?” he’s saying as he shouts at a robot clumsily whirling over the floors. “Dummy! No! Not the shake! He doesn’t need the shake!” Tony chases after the little mechanical creature with gusto until he snags the tumbler out of its claw (hand?).

“What exactly is all of this?” he finally says, stepping further into the common floor.

“Lunch!” Tony declares proudly, pouring the tumbler out into the sink. The goop is strangely green and brown. “Look, I got some more of that shawarma stuff. And there’s these bagels from a bakery three blocks down that somehow didn’t get wiped out. Pasta from Mama Vitto’s and her famous calzones, and some plain old honey smoked ham and chipotle turkey on ciabatta if you just want a sandwich.”

“Mr. Stark, you didn’t have to do this for us!” Mary says, walking towards the counter with more speed than she used earlier. She starts to fix herself a sandwich on the ciabatta bread, piling it high with meat, cheese, and vegetables. Steve shakes himself out of his stupor and joins her, loading up two plates with a variety of food.

“How’s the people search?” Mary asks, question directed at Tony, who sobers up quickly.

“The suit’s reading way too many heat signatures for to be sure who’s buried and who’s not,” he finally says, fork paused halfway between his plate and his mouth. “I’ve been passing them all along, but it still sucks because I can’t help narrow them down to people or busted furnaces or something.”

Mary nods in sympathy as Tony begins to ramble about various detection manners. “JARVIS, can we make improvements to the audio sensors on the suit tonight? If we increase the pitch and range on the readers then maybe I could pick up on sounds down below.” He takes a bite of the pasta and swallows quickly. “Or echolocation! Run some tests!”

Steve and Mary watch as he leaves the room, plate of food forgotten.

“Does this happen often?” he asks her, who shrugs.

“It is more common than not, Captain,” JARVIS replies, a patronizing kind of humor evident in his tone. “You are free to continue your meal.”

Steve returns to his food, chewing in silence as Mary picks at her sandwich.

“Are you not hungry?” he asks.

“Famished.” Steve waits, looking at her expectantly. She sighs. “I have to give a press conference tonight. I don’t do well with the media. At all. I have no idea why the director wants me on this.”

“Because he sees something in you, певичка.” Steve and Mary look up as Natasha joins them. She snags an apple from the counter and sits herself at the table, taking a large bite out of the fruit. “And because he needs you to do this for him. He has to remain hidden and Hill’s too valuable for this.”

“And she’s not?” Steve asks, anger suddenly flaring up. Mary winces from her spot next to him and waves a hand at them.

“I’m sitting right here, guys,” she says pointedly, glaring at him. Steve has the decency to be ashamed, but he wouldn’t apologize for wanted to protect her. He’s only halfway shocked by that inner revelation -- that he is already ready to burn the world for her.

He and Buck had joined so early in their life that everything their soulmarks could provide for them had been second nature. And going through the war together…it had heightened everything they felt, intensified it through each others’ eyes, that they couldn’t help but be integrated together. Jones had joked, after the first raid, that they all “shoulda had fighter soulmates, Cap. Buck’s got four eyes to snipe with!” It had been lighthearted, almost embarrassing, for the men to call out the fact that their bond wasn’t traditional, but their band of Commandos was far less than normal, too. He never felt judged, just the complete blind trust in him as their leader – their captain.

Now, the blind trust was because of those events that happened less than a year prior (to him) and the fact that Captain America survived! He shakes his head, clearing the thoughts, Mary frowning at him slightly.

“You know what I mean, Captain,” Natasha says. “She’s an unknown – the media doesn’t have preconceptions of her. It’s the best chance SHIELD has at this.”

Mary nods. “I suppose I can always play dumb because they don’t know about my official level within the system.” Natasha grins, cat-like in her expression.

“Now you’re understanding.” She takes one last bite out of the apple before tossing the core in the air, sinking it into the trashcan with ease.

“What are you even doing right now, Natasha?”

“Oh, sulking around here and there,” she replies, smirking. “Clint and I are in the air scanning for items outside the city. Top secret. You know how it goes.” She glides out of the room, Mary laughing. She polishes off the last of her sandwich before moving to the fridge, pulling out a protein shake not of Dummy’s creation.

“Are you ready to head back down?” she asks, cracking the seal on the bottle. Steve looks down at his plate and realizes, despite it being empty, he is still hungry. 

“Will it cause a problem for me to head down after you?” Mary shook her head. “I’ll be down in a bit, then.”

“Come find me for your comms when you do.” She gives him a small smile and leaves the common area.

Steve stares after her and runs his hand over his stomach, tracing the black lines out of twenty (eighty) years of habit. Seeing hers grey makes him ache. They all deserve black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There isn't really an excuse for the length of time this took. I hope you all enjoy.


End file.
